Months after the crucial Battle of Jakku, we revisit the Ghost crew while they unravel a mystery or two on Lothal.
The Fate of the Vermillion Quillon
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Sabine: Pretty sure Hera wouldn't want me exposing you to ISB propaganda, little tiger.
About the PIC: Sabine with little Jacen on his 4th birthday, OC. Should ye desire, the link to the actual upload on Discord is more stable...
edit: The [dice rolls] may appear out of place, though it helps me visualize the 'latency' of fleet response times... to battle, then.
***
Last edited:
Prologue - 12 BBY
New
The solitary sun of Lothal casts the first long shadows since nightfall over the sprawling fields and bustling markets. The Empire's presence was growing stronger each day, its influence seeping into every corner of the planet. The once hopeful Lothal Academy had now become a symbol of Imperial indoctrination, a place where young minds were molded to serve the Empire's will.
Leera Vess, a spirited and curious 7 year old, watched from the sidelines. Too young to enroll at the academy, she spent her days exploring the outskirts of the city, dreaming of the day she could make a difference. Her older step-sibling, Merrin, a Dathomiri witch, had taught her the ways of survival and resilience. Merrin's mysterious past and powerful abilities were a source of both awe and inspiration for Leera.
One evening, as the sky turned a deep shade of crimson, Leera stumbled upon a hidden cave at the city's edge. Inside, she discovered remnants of an old Jedi's hideout—maps, communication devices, and a worse-for-wear lightsaber concealed within a burlap cloak's folds.
As she activated the abandoned weapon, a taut beam of magnetically-confined plasma sprang forth, swiftly overtaking the lantern light. This discovery ignited a spark within her, a burning desire to combat the oppression overwhelming her home.
Merrin, perceiving the shift in Leera, commenced her clandestine training. She imparted the ancient Dathomiri ways to Leera, fusing them with the skills required to navigate an Imperial-dominated world. Their bond, forged in secrecy, transcended their differences, united by a shared objective: to defy the Empire and rekindle hope on Lothal.
As the years passed, Leera grew stronger and more determined. By the time she was old enough to enroll at the academy, she had already become a symbol of quiet rebellion, a beacon of hope for those who dared to dream of a better future. The shadows of Lothal were dark, but within them, the light of resistance began to shine.
Merrin, called away to help foster this connection with extant light side users, bequeathed a Dathomiri amulet to Leera before departing with a certain Cal Kestis. This amulet, intricately carved from a rare, dark stone found only on Dathomir, surely was imbued with ancient Nightsister magic. And, although it served as a testament to both the care and attention of Merrin's tutelage, it sometimes brought trouble.
On at least one occasion, a fellow student named Jarek stumbled upon the amulet while Leera was changing for training. Intrigued by its unusual design, Jarek reported it to the academy's authorities, suspecting it might be a relic of forbidden origins.
The report quickly reached the ears of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who was overseeing operations and recruitment at the academy. Known for his keen intellect and strategic mind, Thrawn was intrigued by the mention of a Dathomiri artifact. He decided to intercede personally.
Leera stood nervously before Grand Admiral Thrawn, her amulet now resting on his desk. Thrawn examined the amulet with a discerning eye, his blue-skinned fingers tracing the intricate carvings.
"Miss Vess," Thrawn began, his voice calm and measured, "this amulet is of Dathomiri origin, is it not?"
Leera nodded, her heart pounding. "Yes, sir. It was a gift from my stepsibling."
Thrawn's red eyes met hers, and for a moment, she felt as though he could see right through her. "Your step-sibling, Merrin, I presume? A Nightsister?"
Leera's eyes widened in surprise. "How do you know about her?"
Thrawn allowed himself a small, enigmatic smile. "I make it my business to know. The Nightsisters are a fascinating culture, and their artifacts are rare and valuable." Then he paused, considering his next words carefully. "You are aware that possessing such an item could be seen as a sign of rebellion against the Empire?"
Leera swallowed hard. "Yes, sir. But it's also a reminder of my heritage and the strength it gives me."
Thrawn leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "I see. Loyalty to one's heritage is commendable, but it must not conflict with loyalty to the Empire." He picked up the amulet, holding it out to her. "Keep it, Miss Vess. But remember, your actions will be closely monitored. Do not give me a reason to question your loyalty."
Leera took the amulet, relief washing over her. "Thank you, sir. I won't disappoint you."
As she left Thrawn's office, she couldn't shake the feeling that the Grand Admiral had seen something in her—something that might one day be of great importance.
To then dismiss the lot of it with a bleary-eyed blink as fellow crew members are soundly berated for stalling at the blast door controls. Apparently, not the best time for daydreaming.
Leera Vess, a spirited and curious 7 year old, watched from the sidelines. Too young to enroll at the academy, she spent her days exploring the outskirts of the city, dreaming of the day she could make a difference. Her older step-sibling, Merrin, a Dathomiri witch, had taught her the ways of survival and resilience. Merrin's mysterious past and powerful abilities were a source of both awe and inspiration for Leera.
One evening, as the sky turned a deep shade of crimson, Leera stumbled upon a hidden cave at the city's edge. Inside, she discovered remnants of an old Jedi's hideout—maps, communication devices, and a worse-for-wear lightsaber concealed within a burlap cloak's folds.
As she activated the abandoned weapon, a taut beam of magnetically-confined plasma sprang forth, swiftly overtaking the lantern light. This discovery ignited a spark within her, a burning desire to combat the oppression overwhelming her home.
Merrin, perceiving the shift in Leera, commenced her clandestine training. She imparted the ancient Dathomiri ways to Leera, fusing them with the skills required to navigate an Imperial-dominated world. Their bond, forged in secrecy, transcended their differences, united by a shared objective: to defy the Empire and rekindle hope on Lothal.
As the years passed, Leera grew stronger and more determined. By the time she was old enough to enroll at the academy, she had already become a symbol of quiet rebellion, a beacon of hope for those who dared to dream of a better future. The shadows of Lothal were dark, but within them, the light of resistance began to shine.
Merrin, called away to help foster this connection with extant light side users, bequeathed a Dathomiri amulet to Leera before departing with a certain Cal Kestis. This amulet, intricately carved from a rare, dark stone found only on Dathomir, surely was imbued with ancient Nightsister magic. And, although it served as a testament to both the care and attention of Merrin's tutelage, it sometimes brought trouble.
On at least one occasion, a fellow student named Jarek stumbled upon the amulet while Leera was changing for training. Intrigued by its unusual design, Jarek reported it to the academy's authorities, suspecting it might be a relic of forbidden origins.
The report quickly reached the ears of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who was overseeing operations and recruitment at the academy. Known for his keen intellect and strategic mind, Thrawn was intrigued by the mention of a Dathomiri artifact. He decided to intercede personally.
Leera stood nervously before Grand Admiral Thrawn, her amulet now resting on his desk. Thrawn examined the amulet with a discerning eye, his blue-skinned fingers tracing the intricate carvings.
"Miss Vess," Thrawn began, his voice calm and measured, "this amulet is of Dathomiri origin, is it not?"
Leera nodded, her heart pounding. "Yes, sir. It was a gift from my stepsibling."
Thrawn's red eyes met hers, and for a moment, she felt as though he could see right through her. "Your step-sibling, Merrin, I presume? A Nightsister?"
Leera's eyes widened in surprise. "How do you know about her?"
Thrawn allowed himself a small, enigmatic smile. "I make it my business to know. The Nightsisters are a fascinating culture, and their artifacts are rare and valuable." Then he paused, considering his next words carefully. "You are aware that possessing such an item could be seen as a sign of rebellion against the Empire?"
Leera swallowed hard. "Yes, sir. But it's also a reminder of my heritage and the strength it gives me."
Thrawn leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "I see. Loyalty to one's heritage is commendable, but it must not conflict with loyalty to the Empire." He picked up the amulet, holding it out to her. "Keep it, Miss Vess. But remember, your actions will be closely monitored. Do not give me a reason to question your loyalty."
Leera took the amulet, relief washing over her. "Thank you, sir. I won't disappoint you."
As she left Thrawn's office, she couldn't shake the feeling that the Grand Admiral had seen something in her—something that might one day be of great importance.
To then dismiss the lot of it with a bleary-eyed blink as fellow crew members are soundly berated for stalling at the blast door controls. Apparently, not the best time for daydreaming.
***
Episode 1 | Trade Lanes, Calrissian, are our Speciality
New
Having served as the base of operations for the elite Inferno Squad, dodging its way through a number of battles for and against the Empire, the Corvus retained an imposing presence in peacetime. One could argue it was more than a ship; rather a living chronicle of the shifting tides in a galaxy far, far away. Yet, none of this began to compare to the relic from before the Clone Wars, sitting pretty much disassembled under a broad desk lamp. Crew members withdrew arc welders and faceplates, glumly shaking their heads at Shriv standing off to the side bemusedly. "Then, that is as far as we are going to get for one rotation," he asserted, clapping his hands to shut off most of the bay lighting aboard their beloved bird.
The Duros whirled about, feeling a datapad brush his shoulder blade, before biting back a sharp rebuke to simply accept it from its holder. Their errand accomplished, his associate ducked out of the way, in time for the turbolift doors to widen and then pause some ways apart with a theatrical clinking. His eyes adjusted to the lighting from the exposed vestibule's innards. "Ah, Captain Antilles, I imagine you want an update on our findings?"
Wedge, looking distraught: "Mon will have both our heads if the Vulture droid isn't put back together for my shuttling back down to the surface."
The Duros looked squarely at the ace starfighter pilot and seasoned tactician. "Sure, but this is the first I'm hearing of this. To think she would be all that concerned with our little experiment."
"She's confident you found what you were looking for, now, unless you were originally planning to go through Chandrilan customs and could use a more non-descript albeit flavorful description for this precious cargo, might I warm up the HoloConstructor and get the poor thing flight ready?"
The Duros frowned. "I really dunno, given the amount of technical wizardry you'd need?"
"I know next to a droid's visual indexing of every bolt, every wire connecting those X-Wings you keep aboard. Give me the Constructor controls."
"Easy now, Wedge," General Calrissian remarked, stepping between either of them. "Not one of us here is expected to build Clone Wars tech from the ground up. Not with the amenities aboard this otherwise fine chunk of Kuat engineering."
"Actually, theoretically we can," Shriv supplied, validating the security clearance prompter on the Constructor's control interface, before releasing the hand-held batons that guide its spider-like drone eyes over to Captain Antilles. "If you'd be so kind as to show us."
---
Sabine Wren, with her helmet-borne hair as wild as the manes of the Untamed of Onderon, stood before an altogether alien environ. Her fingers danced over the limited hotkeys, a far cry from true holographic controls, that her wrist kit will allow. It was causing some hiccups, the kind Chopper would jettison maintenance oil over.
Which, to her, fighting back an umpteenth amused grimace, makes creating a mock environment for entering a Jedi trance so very preposterous.
At last, a symphony of beeps and the screen correctly displays the stellar backdrop for their little recreation. Then, stalled frames, and a camera that won't stop looking at her feet. Oh, the struggles to come. "Buggernauts," she muttered, a term oft reserved for the pesky glitches that seem almost sentient in their persistence.
The Jedi instructor droid, its paint chipped away to reveal durasteel beneath, coaxed her away from the display's edge with a voice as smooth and polished as the Lothalian liquor she stored in her cellar. "Just focus, Miss Wren," it said, though the hologram flickered as it neared.
Sabine, setting the emitters to standby, spun around and threw up her hands in exasperation. "See, Huyang? This is what I'm dealing with."
"I understand you're short a few helpers. However, that's all the more reason for us to collaborate."
"You're tens of millennia older than this relic, I'm amazed you're still operational!"
"Well, so are those temples you're trying to find. The ones covered in gnarled roots and all but forgotten?"
Sabine sighed, before nodding. "I guess. What if you just got me a different holoprojector? This one is all types of buggered."
"No, Miss Wren, that is merely a visual aid," Huyang contended, its tone unwavering. "Focus inward for now.
"Ahh, habul bub..." Sabine issued in retort, a muffled mimicry of Chopper's mechanical cantankerousness. Though, she at last complied, sitting back down and steadying her breathing.
In her mind's eye, the shadowy tendrils of Dathomir stretched out, ensnaring her thoughts. It was here, among the gnarled roots and forgotten temples, that Ezra Bridger, knucklehead, had first agreed to join Darth Maul on a quest for enlightenment—a shared vision that had unveiled the scorching twin suns of Tatooine, guiding them to the enigmatic Master Kenobi.
As Sabine immersed herself in the depths of Jedi meditation, the memory of that critical moment lay peacefully in her core, bringing tranquility to her mind. In that space, fragile echoes of ancient Mothers, caught in a lamentable spell and whispering wildly, established a pact. Ezra's fervent wish to defeat the Sith, set against Maul's relentless craving for vengeance, forming an alliance as unstable as it was indispensable.
A Loth-cat whizzed by the windows of her modest apartment, prompting Huyang to move to the front gangway for a spell.
In her humble abode, a reflection of the turmoil from a life caught in the fervor of rebellion, Sabine at last snapped out of her trance, collapsing to the floor. Her gaze wandered aimlessly before focusing on the ordinary clutter of laundry, newer, decidedly Lothalian clothes to accommodate her growth spurt, and garments borrowed from Ahsoka Tano, who, to her knowledge, had set off on a mission to locate Commander Skywalker.
Would it be too much to ask for Tano to be present? Sabine's attempts at meditation had barely advanced, mirroring the state of Sabine's digs, a stark contrast to Tano's early days fighting alongside the greatest Masters. Her advancement was simply otherworldly.
That this was somehow the next in hopefully another long line of Rebel Alliance's victories—to foster a new generation of light side adherents, to repopulate the galaxy with beacons of hope. The foley of life, whereas Master Anachronisms, poking his mechanical head through the door to look her way. No, he was all right. All of them were now bound by this sacred charge, to ensure that the light of the Force prevailed this time around, to honor the sacrifices made, both Core and Rim. To think all that struggle could somehow keep the darkness at bay.
---
In the fragile epoch, a compound fracture of a power vacuum, all blood feuds, little to no diplomacy, the silhouette of the Jocasta had etched itself into the unprecedented. Newly knighted as the Outer Rim's superstition and rumor-inducing sentinel.
Upon the bridge, Captain Elara, already bedecked with commendations, held her vigil with unwavering resolve. Her hands, firm upon the helm, commanded the vessel into the latest brewing storm. Behind her, a droid rallied the crew. "Brace yourselves! Evasive maneuvers to commence at Captain's behest!"
With a deft pivot, the Jocasta banked hard, its shields igniting in a radiant display as it weaved through the detritus of an exploding friendly. The decks quaked under the strain, yet hull integrity remained well enough intact—a testament to the off the books modifications.
Below the bustle of the bridge span sat engineering, where Engineer Rex strode unperturbed, casting his gaze upon the shield diagnostics, his anticipation palpable as the readouts cycled back around. "By the stars, she's stalwart indeed!" he bellowed, letting out a whoop which cut through the broad tones of powerplant diagnostics.
The Jocasta moved into position, ensnaring a smattering of escape pods with top-of-the-line tractor beams. Its portals flared to, extending as if in invitation to those adrift, the hull itself aligning with deftness and confidence.
Within the semblance of sanctity that was Jocasta's lone medical bay, the rescued souls were grouped together with military haste, greeted by the orchestrated symphony of droids and medics in their livery all working in seamless unity. Captain Elara's entrance was almost overlooked, until she stopped the head Surgeon mid report to look at those newly in their care. "Welcome aboard the Jocasta."
Back on the bridge, Commander Vess looked fervently about for Elara, only to reflect once more on the dwindling starlight as the surest hint of Lothal's parent star about to enter forward frame. "Are we sticking around? There's a good chance the Empire still considers the planet dead to rights." Her comlink buzzed from the folds of her uniform. "This is Vess." Captain Elara's voice began trickling through after a beat, with signs of her foregoing use of the turbolift to sprint up the maintenance access. What's a little exercise in the heat of battle, Vess gathered.
"Assemble a strike team if you please? I want those charges in place, preferably before the reinforcements get here."
---
"I'm serious, take this moment to muse over the enigmatic disappearance of Ezra Bridger all you like. I mean, not like Kanan was really one for seeing the sights," Hera begat.
"Could you repeat that, Syndulla?"
"No, I mean, the times we'd go exploring, before he had that run in with that Sith. The one you've been seeking in your recent meditations. Which I hear you've been struggling with lately."
Sabine, bringing up the rear, paused to find her footing, slipping a bit. "Yes, it's difficult to overlook the stark, visceral nature. I honestly don't know how the Jedi just breeze through it. This gravel under our feet? It immediately brings to mind those heaps of desiccated bones at the entrance to that particularly unwelcoming crypt. Many not Kanan, but Ezra would have shared this sentiment."
Hera appeared to listen, though her eyes strayed to the summit. It was an arduous undertaking, raising both of those youngsters in the midst of a humorless Imperial occupation.
They resumed their ascent, hugging the beaten path overlooking precipitous cliffs and stupefying precipices. Where it mattered, Sabine blazed the trail, helmet augments identifying animal tracks and other anomalies. Though Hera, with her unwavering resolve and astute piloting acumen, charted the last bit of labyrinthine terrain to their destination.
In an unforeseen twist, as they approached the pinnacle and re-entered the realm of communication signals, they chanced upon a reclusive hermit ensconced within a humble abode of his own making. This solitary figure, Taron Malicos by name, once a Jedi, had sought refuge on Lothal, embracing meditation and the pursuit of tranquility. Arms outstretched, he received Hera and Sabine's travel packs, finding a spot for them as he scooted aside his own effects with one leg. It was a simple dwelling imparting the sagacity of a Force-attuned mind.
Twilight was already enveloping the sky, suggesting the trio make camp outside the diminutive shack. Sabine produced a crackling campfire in short order, as their conversation meandered through the annals of their histories, aspirations for days yet to dawn, and of the Force.
Taron's readily identified with Hera's quest for purpose, while Sabine found her connection to the grander rebellion against the Empire's lingering shadows was at no risk of falling on deaf ears. Though, as the stars steadily tracked overhead, her helmet free, she found it tiresome to keep with the bulk of it, and droop droop went her eyelids.
As dawn's early light cast a golden hue across the mountaintops, Hera and Sabine bid a heartfelt farewell to Taron, their promise to return lingering in the crisp morning air, now perhaps with a deeper understanding of their latest quest and a bond strengthened by shared stories and aromatic teas.
Just in time, it seemed, for Sabine to experience her first vision of Darth Maul, sullenly glancing up at her from just beyond a grove of petrified trees, stark and preserved in their unyielding gravel beds.
---
The lightly-armored transport ship, the Cunning Ruse, floated adrift in space. Its distress signal blared across the void, a beacon of urgency, while the bridge continued in muted, nonplussed routine, far from a hive of activity. Officers worked quietly at their stations, though the tense murmurings exchanged between senior command was causing the rest of the crew to pale just a bit.
With a determined expression, Lieutenant Commander Faro paced about, not wanting to simply wait around. She turned to one of the nearest technicians on the bridge, in similar uniform to her own. "What do you think? Will they take the hint?"
"Impossible to say, sir. Though, the simulations do track marginally in our favor."
"Well, it's time we put on our coveralls, then," Faro tried, begrudgingly.
Peering through the main viewports, wedged between layers of protective allotropes—the lightest grade of space application armor permitted by Lothal Galaktik for long-range missions—it was evident that the Cunning Ruse was channeling the majority of its power banks to initiate transformation. Within moments, what was once a bulky cargo freighter had metamorphosed into a sleek, symmetrical surveillance platform, its true form revealed. Antennae and sensors emerged from hidden compartments, unfurling like the petals of a metallic flower reaching towards the cosmos.
On a keypad, another of the Cunning Ruse's bridge staff tapped away, sending out an encoded transmission: Calling all LGE critical assets to rendezvous...
Well removed, but sharing the same star's gravity well, the lone scout of an Imperial battle group once assigned to that sector takes note, spinning about to send a secure enough communique of its own back to Admiral Kryze. A few hyperspaced seconds later, and the Admiral is setting down his mug of caf, groaning throatily. "Dispatch the Harbinger!" he blared.
The Harbinger, a Corellian reimagining of CW-era Acclamator-class hulls, exited hyperspace with purpose. Its familiar dart-like silhouette paused only for a moment, angling about as its sensor banks cleared from the usual hyperspace tachyons and sized-up the pinprick that was the Ruse on robust, long-range scopes.
But it was not alone. For, despite the vast expanse of space under the vigilant supervision of the New Republic, the Vanguard fleet was fortuitously nearby.
In a matter of moments, the modest in-system patrol—comprising an A-Wing, two Y-Wings, and a Clone Wars-era gunboat—was overshadowed by the arrival of a Mon Calamari cruiser, the MC80a Defiance, itself a veteran of major conflicts. A fierce battle ensued almost immediately. The MC80a, with its formidable array of blister cannons powering up, unleashed a relentless volley of fire on the solitary enemy assault ship, which retaliated by launching wave after wave of unshielded yet dangerously fast TIEs, a redesign that some in private security had begun to derogatorily call "Uglies."
This included members of the duty roster aboard the Jocasta, whose bridge crew was anticipating Captain Elara's return from her impromptu 'meeting of the minds' on the other LGE vessel. Its mere presence acted as a beacon for the Republic's fighters, who were outnumbered by the swarms of improvised TIEs hurtling towards them. Nonetheless, her voice remained calm and steady amid the chaotic ship-to-ship combat.
The TIE Uglies, once an emblem of terror, were now outclassed by the allied forces of the New Republic and Lothal Galaktik. The scores of freshly fitted A-Wings, agile and fast, weaved through the conflict, piloted by experts at the peak of their abilities. The Y-Wings, solid and dependable, hit what few targets would stay in their crosshairs, relying more on the conga line of B-Wings arcing and raking the Harbinger stem to stern, shaking the ship to its core.
While the lone CW-era gunboat, a vestige of bygone conflicts, once again demonstrated its value, as its gunners' resolve shifted by striking a devastating blow to one whole enemy TIE.
The call for retreat sounded, and the remaining TIE fighters returned to the Harbinger's narrow, centerline hangar as it accelerated towards the system's edge.
Too far for the A-Wings, so quick to dispense with their fuel, though in jumped some Lothal Galaktik V-Wings before long, repainted and uprated. But then, as these newcomers to the fray closed the gap, ribbons of concussive light flared around the outbound assault ship, which LGE and Republic forces mistakenly inferred to be the Harbinger attempting to tow ejected Imperial pilots to safety.
---
"Well, that was the first wave. What else they got?" Hera, pulled from her hike-slash-consoling a particularly paranoid Sabine, radioed in from the Ghost, snapping her fingers for Chopper to pull up a hologram of the theater of engagement.
Undoubtedly, Imperial reinforcements were arriving from a nearby refueling and refitting station, of which the Empire still maintained many throughout the Outer Rim. She gaped. It was a phalanx of seventeen Arquitens-class light cruisers materializing as one, assuming a formation to cover the Harbinger's retreat. From their forward holds, twin-ions launched, all of them Interceptors, the pride of the Imperial fleet.
They engaged, surprising the eager V-Wings, but only momentarily.
A deadly ballet ensued, starfighters weaving through the arcs of point defense batteries from the phalanx members.
Onboard the lone MC80a entering the fray, General Tira's piercing gaze observed the Imperials as they engaged with her formidable capital ship. She relished this aspect of the New Republic's admiralty, orchestrating the dynamics of battle, compelling the enemy to commit grievous errors. However, the presence of numerous light cruisers was not to be underestimated.
The subsidiary capitals that comprised the remainder of Vanguard now served as her ace in the hole. They advanced into position with bristling intent, each vessel and pilot a vital element in her mission to retire those aged bulwarks that was blockading on behalf of a Pryce governorship planetary system ago.
Her musings stopped, as on the readouts, the source of the distress signal was reduced to a flickering, metallic mist.
The battle had reached a crescendo.
The void of space was lit by the blaze of lasers, the hum of engines, and the silent cries of the fallen. The New Republic, united in purpose and spirit, fought not just for victory, but for the ideals they held dear. The Imperials in this space, for the moment reunited and as tenacious as ever. They were refusing to yield, even in the face of overwhelming odds.
---
Hera: "I'm sorry, Sabine, were you saying something?"
Sabine regarded what to her was an upside down Twi'lek as she finished yet another Jedi meditation, suspended from a support strut of a refueling dongle keeping the Ghost for the moment grounded. "Oh? I must have been muttering to myself. So, we heading out?"
Hera sighed, rubbing her forehead. "No, my orders back were to not use ground assets so close to the festival. I think the LGE is trigger-happy enough as it is."
Sabine dropped to the deck, reaching frantically for her sidearm on the way down. "Darth Maul!" her voice echoed in the Ghost's assigned hangar, her helmet snapping on with a hiss, rangefinder lowering to ready state as she braced for battle.
Hera, skepticism etched across her features, banished the last vestiges of slumber from her eyes with a disbelieving rub. Her mouth already formed the start of 'There is nobody there...' but she paused. On the hologram of what was now the busiest, messiest chunk of their sector (and rerouting a lot of festival traffic to boot) appeared a flurry of red pop-ups. "That's not good. Someone or something's getting through our outer defenses...!?"
The Duros whirled about, feeling a datapad brush his shoulder blade, before biting back a sharp rebuke to simply accept it from its holder. Their errand accomplished, his associate ducked out of the way, in time for the turbolift doors to widen and then pause some ways apart with a theatrical clinking. His eyes adjusted to the lighting from the exposed vestibule's innards. "Ah, Captain Antilles, I imagine you want an update on our findings?"
Wedge, looking distraught: "Mon will have both our heads if the Vulture droid isn't put back together for my shuttling back down to the surface."
The Duros looked squarely at the ace starfighter pilot and seasoned tactician. "Sure, but this is the first I'm hearing of this. To think she would be all that concerned with our little experiment."
"She's confident you found what you were looking for, now, unless you were originally planning to go through Chandrilan customs and could use a more non-descript albeit flavorful description for this precious cargo, might I warm up the HoloConstructor and get the poor thing flight ready?"
The Duros frowned. "I really dunno, given the amount of technical wizardry you'd need?"
"I know next to a droid's visual indexing of every bolt, every wire connecting those X-Wings you keep aboard. Give me the Constructor controls."
"Easy now, Wedge," General Calrissian remarked, stepping between either of them. "Not one of us here is expected to build Clone Wars tech from the ground up. Not with the amenities aboard this otherwise fine chunk of Kuat engineering."
"Actually, theoretically we can," Shriv supplied, validating the security clearance prompter on the Constructor's control interface, before releasing the hand-held batons that guide its spider-like drone eyes over to Captain Antilles. "If you'd be so kind as to show us."
---
Sabine Wren, with her helmet-borne hair as wild as the manes of the Untamed of Onderon, stood before an altogether alien environ. Her fingers danced over the limited hotkeys, a far cry from true holographic controls, that her wrist kit will allow. It was causing some hiccups, the kind Chopper would jettison maintenance oil over.
Which, to her, fighting back an umpteenth amused grimace, makes creating a mock environment for entering a Jedi trance so very preposterous.
At last, a symphony of beeps and the screen correctly displays the stellar backdrop for their little recreation. Then, stalled frames, and a camera that won't stop looking at her feet. Oh, the struggles to come. "Buggernauts," she muttered, a term oft reserved for the pesky glitches that seem almost sentient in their persistence.
The Jedi instructor droid, its paint chipped away to reveal durasteel beneath, coaxed her away from the display's edge with a voice as smooth and polished as the Lothalian liquor she stored in her cellar. "Just focus, Miss Wren," it said, though the hologram flickered as it neared.
Sabine, setting the emitters to standby, spun around and threw up her hands in exasperation. "See, Huyang? This is what I'm dealing with."
"I understand you're short a few helpers. However, that's all the more reason for us to collaborate."
"You're tens of millennia older than this relic, I'm amazed you're still operational!"
"Well, so are those temples you're trying to find. The ones covered in gnarled roots and all but forgotten?"
Sabine sighed, before nodding. "I guess. What if you just got me a different holoprojector? This one is all types of buggered."
"No, Miss Wren, that is merely a visual aid," Huyang contended, its tone unwavering. "Focus inward for now.
"Ahh, habul bub..." Sabine issued in retort, a muffled mimicry of Chopper's mechanical cantankerousness. Though, she at last complied, sitting back down and steadying her breathing.
In her mind's eye, the shadowy tendrils of Dathomir stretched out, ensnaring her thoughts. It was here, among the gnarled roots and forgotten temples, that Ezra Bridger, knucklehead, had first agreed to join Darth Maul on a quest for enlightenment—a shared vision that had unveiled the scorching twin suns of Tatooine, guiding them to the enigmatic Master Kenobi.
As Sabine immersed herself in the depths of Jedi meditation, the memory of that critical moment lay peacefully in her core, bringing tranquility to her mind. In that space, fragile echoes of ancient Mothers, caught in a lamentable spell and whispering wildly, established a pact. Ezra's fervent wish to defeat the Sith, set against Maul's relentless craving for vengeance, forming an alliance as unstable as it was indispensable.
A Loth-cat whizzed by the windows of her modest apartment, prompting Huyang to move to the front gangway for a spell.
In her humble abode, a reflection of the turmoil from a life caught in the fervor of rebellion, Sabine at last snapped out of her trance, collapsing to the floor. Her gaze wandered aimlessly before focusing on the ordinary clutter of laundry, newer, decidedly Lothalian clothes to accommodate her growth spurt, and garments borrowed from Ahsoka Tano, who, to her knowledge, had set off on a mission to locate Commander Skywalker.
Would it be too much to ask for Tano to be present? Sabine's attempts at meditation had barely advanced, mirroring the state of Sabine's digs, a stark contrast to Tano's early days fighting alongside the greatest Masters. Her advancement was simply otherworldly.
That this was somehow the next in hopefully another long line of Rebel Alliance's victories—to foster a new generation of light side adherents, to repopulate the galaxy with beacons of hope. The foley of life, whereas Master Anachronisms, poking his mechanical head through the door to look her way. No, he was all right. All of them were now bound by this sacred charge, to ensure that the light of the Force prevailed this time around, to honor the sacrifices made, both Core and Rim. To think all that struggle could somehow keep the darkness at bay.
---
The Nebul-class light cruiser Jocasta burst forth from the lightshow of hyperspace with a sleek yet predatory grace. This vessel, a souped up Aiwha-class, stood as a proud emblem of the nascent private security enterprise, Lothal Galaktik.In the fragile epoch, a compound fracture of a power vacuum, all blood feuds, little to no diplomacy, the silhouette of the Jocasta had etched itself into the unprecedented. Newly knighted as the Outer Rim's superstition and rumor-inducing sentinel.
Upon the bridge, Captain Elara, already bedecked with commendations, held her vigil with unwavering resolve. Her hands, firm upon the helm, commanded the vessel into the latest brewing storm. Behind her, a droid rallied the crew. "Brace yourselves! Evasive maneuvers to commence at Captain's behest!"
With a deft pivot, the Jocasta banked hard, its shields igniting in a radiant display as it weaved through the detritus of an exploding friendly. The decks quaked under the strain, yet hull integrity remained well enough intact—a testament to the off the books modifications.
Below the bustle of the bridge span sat engineering, where Engineer Rex strode unperturbed, casting his gaze upon the shield diagnostics, his anticipation palpable as the readouts cycled back around. "By the stars, she's stalwart indeed!" he bellowed, letting out a whoop which cut through the broad tones of powerplant diagnostics.
The Jocasta moved into position, ensnaring a smattering of escape pods with top-of-the-line tractor beams. Its portals flared to, extending as if in invitation to those adrift, the hull itself aligning with deftness and confidence.
Within the semblance of sanctity that was Jocasta's lone medical bay, the rescued souls were grouped together with military haste, greeted by the orchestrated symphony of droids and medics in their livery all working in seamless unity. Captain Elara's entrance was almost overlooked, until she stopped the head Surgeon mid report to look at those newly in their care. "Welcome aboard the Jocasta."
Back on the bridge, Commander Vess looked fervently about for Elara, only to reflect once more on the dwindling starlight as the surest hint of Lothal's parent star about to enter forward frame. "Are we sticking around? There's a good chance the Empire still considers the planet dead to rights." Her comlink buzzed from the folds of her uniform. "This is Vess." Captain Elara's voice began trickling through after a beat, with signs of her foregoing use of the turbolift to sprint up the maintenance access. What's a little exercise in the heat of battle, Vess gathered.
"Assemble a strike team if you please? I want those charges in place, preferably before the reinforcements get here."
---
Meanwhile, in a serendipitous pause from their relentless duties, Hera Syndulla was finally taking time to meander through the majestic mountains of Lothal, asking Sabine Wren to accompany her."I'm serious, take this moment to muse over the enigmatic disappearance of Ezra Bridger all you like. I mean, not like Kanan was really one for seeing the sights," Hera begat.
"Could you repeat that, Syndulla?"
"No, I mean, the times we'd go exploring, before he had that run in with that Sith. The one you've been seeking in your recent meditations. Which I hear you've been struggling with lately."
Sabine, bringing up the rear, paused to find her footing, slipping a bit. "Yes, it's difficult to overlook the stark, visceral nature. I honestly don't know how the Jedi just breeze through it. This gravel under our feet? It immediately brings to mind those heaps of desiccated bones at the entrance to that particularly unwelcoming crypt. Many not Kanan, but Ezra would have shared this sentiment."
Hera appeared to listen, though her eyes strayed to the summit. It was an arduous undertaking, raising both of those youngsters in the midst of a humorless Imperial occupation.
They resumed their ascent, hugging the beaten path overlooking precipitous cliffs and stupefying precipices. Where it mattered, Sabine blazed the trail, helmet augments identifying animal tracks and other anomalies. Though Hera, with her unwavering resolve and astute piloting acumen, charted the last bit of labyrinthine terrain to their destination.
In an unforeseen twist, as they approached the pinnacle and re-entered the realm of communication signals, they chanced upon a reclusive hermit ensconced within a humble abode of his own making. This solitary figure, Taron Malicos by name, once a Jedi, had sought refuge on Lothal, embracing meditation and the pursuit of tranquility. Arms outstretched, he received Hera and Sabine's travel packs, finding a spot for them as he scooted aside his own effects with one leg. It was a simple dwelling imparting the sagacity of a Force-attuned mind.
Twilight was already enveloping the sky, suggesting the trio make camp outside the diminutive shack. Sabine produced a crackling campfire in short order, as their conversation meandered through the annals of their histories, aspirations for days yet to dawn, and of the Force.
Taron's readily identified with Hera's quest for purpose, while Sabine found her connection to the grander rebellion against the Empire's lingering shadows was at no risk of falling on deaf ears. Though, as the stars steadily tracked overhead, her helmet free, she found it tiresome to keep with the bulk of it, and droop droop went her eyelids.
As dawn's early light cast a golden hue across the mountaintops, Hera and Sabine bid a heartfelt farewell to Taron, their promise to return lingering in the crisp morning air, now perhaps with a deeper understanding of their latest quest and a bond strengthened by shared stories and aromatic teas.
Just in time, it seemed, for Sabine to experience her first vision of Darth Maul, sullenly glancing up at her from just beyond a grove of petrified trees, stark and preserved in their unyielding gravel beds.
---
The lightly-armored transport ship, the Cunning Ruse, floated adrift in space. Its distress signal blared across the void, a beacon of urgency, while the bridge continued in muted, nonplussed routine, far from a hive of activity. Officers worked quietly at their stations, though the tense murmurings exchanged between senior command was causing the rest of the crew to pale just a bit.
With a determined expression, Lieutenant Commander Faro paced about, not wanting to simply wait around. She turned to one of the nearest technicians on the bridge, in similar uniform to her own. "What do you think? Will they take the hint?"
"Impossible to say, sir. Though, the simulations do track marginally in our favor."
"Well, it's time we put on our coveralls, then," Faro tried, begrudgingly.
Peering through the main viewports, wedged between layers of protective allotropes—the lightest grade of space application armor permitted by Lothal Galaktik for long-range missions—it was evident that the Cunning Ruse was channeling the majority of its power banks to initiate transformation. Within moments, what was once a bulky cargo freighter had metamorphosed into a sleek, symmetrical surveillance platform, its true form revealed. Antennae and sensors emerged from hidden compartments, unfurling like the petals of a metallic flower reaching towards the cosmos.
On a keypad, another of the Cunning Ruse's bridge staff tapped away, sending out an encoded transmission: Calling all LGE critical assets to rendezvous...
Well removed, but sharing the same star's gravity well, the lone scout of an Imperial battle group once assigned to that sector takes note, spinning about to send a secure enough communique of its own back to Admiral Kryze. A few hyperspaced seconds later, and the Admiral is setting down his mug of caf, groaning throatily. "Dispatch the Harbinger!" he blared.
The Harbinger, a Corellian reimagining of CW-era Acclamator-class hulls, exited hyperspace with purpose. Its familiar dart-like silhouette paused only for a moment, angling about as its sensor banks cleared from the usual hyperspace tachyons and sized-up the pinprick that was the Ruse on robust, long-range scopes.
But it was not alone. For, despite the vast expanse of space under the vigilant supervision of the New Republic, the Vanguard fleet was fortuitously nearby.
In a matter of moments, the modest in-system patrol—comprising an A-Wing, two Y-Wings, and a Clone Wars-era gunboat—was overshadowed by the arrival of a Mon Calamari cruiser, the MC80a Defiance, itself a veteran of major conflicts. A fierce battle ensued almost immediately. The MC80a, with its formidable array of blister cannons powering up, unleashed a relentless volley of fire on the solitary enemy assault ship, which retaliated by launching wave after wave of unshielded yet dangerously fast TIEs, a redesign that some in private security had begun to derogatorily call "Uglies."
This included members of the duty roster aboard the Jocasta, whose bridge crew was anticipating Captain Elara's return from her impromptu 'meeting of the minds' on the other LGE vessel. Its mere presence acted as a beacon for the Republic's fighters, who were outnumbered by the swarms of improvised TIEs hurtling towards them. Nonetheless, her voice remained calm and steady amid the chaotic ship-to-ship combat.
The TIE Uglies, once an emblem of terror, were now outclassed by the allied forces of the New Republic and Lothal Galaktik. The scores of freshly fitted A-Wings, agile and fast, weaved through the conflict, piloted by experts at the peak of their abilities. The Y-Wings, solid and dependable, hit what few targets would stay in their crosshairs, relying more on the conga line of B-Wings arcing and raking the Harbinger stem to stern, shaking the ship to its core.
While the lone CW-era gunboat, a vestige of bygone conflicts, once again demonstrated its value, as its gunners' resolve shifted by striking a devastating blow to one whole enemy TIE.
The call for retreat sounded, and the remaining TIE fighters returned to the Harbinger's narrow, centerline hangar as it accelerated towards the system's edge.
Too far for the A-Wings, so quick to dispense with their fuel, though in jumped some Lothal Galaktik V-Wings before long, repainted and uprated. But then, as these newcomers to the fray closed the gap, ribbons of concussive light flared around the outbound assault ship, which LGE and Republic forces mistakenly inferred to be the Harbinger attempting to tow ejected Imperial pilots to safety.
---
"Well, that was the first wave. What else they got?" Hera, pulled from her hike-slash-consoling a particularly paranoid Sabine, radioed in from the Ghost, snapping her fingers for Chopper to pull up a hologram of the theater of engagement.
Undoubtedly, Imperial reinforcements were arriving from a nearby refueling and refitting station, of which the Empire still maintained many throughout the Outer Rim. She gaped. It was a phalanx of seventeen Arquitens-class light cruisers materializing as one, assuming a formation to cover the Harbinger's retreat. From their forward holds, twin-ions launched, all of them Interceptors, the pride of the Imperial fleet.
They engaged, surprising the eager V-Wings, but only momentarily.
A deadly ballet ensued, starfighters weaving through the arcs of point defense batteries from the phalanx members.
Onboard the lone MC80a entering the fray, General Tira's piercing gaze observed the Imperials as they engaged with her formidable capital ship. She relished this aspect of the New Republic's admiralty, orchestrating the dynamics of battle, compelling the enemy to commit grievous errors. However, the presence of numerous light cruisers was not to be underestimated.
The subsidiary capitals that comprised the remainder of Vanguard now served as her ace in the hole. They advanced into position with bristling intent, each vessel and pilot a vital element in her mission to retire those aged bulwarks that was blockading on behalf of a Pryce governorship planetary system ago.
Her musings stopped, as on the readouts, the source of the distress signal was reduced to a flickering, metallic mist.
The battle had reached a crescendo.
The void of space was lit by the blaze of lasers, the hum of engines, and the silent cries of the fallen. The New Republic, united in purpose and spirit, fought not just for victory, but for the ideals they held dear. The Imperials in this space, for the moment reunited and as tenacious as ever. They were refusing to yield, even in the face of overwhelming odds.
---
--------
Operation Silent Roar
Date: Centaxday, [REDACTED]
Reporting Officer:
Summary:
The Operation was executed with precision and discretion, despite the concurrent festivities on Lothal which continue to pose a significant challenge in maintaining consistent communication lines. All of the operation's primary objectives were accomplished, beginning with the decryption of intercepted Imperial traffic and chatter in our sector and culminating in the reclamation of the Ruse, which had been broadcasting of the matter of an urgent situation.
Events:
At 0600 chrono, the Cunning Ruse was identified adrift in range of our sector defense patrols. A Lt. Cmdr Faro was in command, while various officers attached to the New Republic battlegroup Vanguard proceeded through rungs of escalation with Imperial aggressors per similar encounters in recent weeks.
The Cunning Ruse left a debris trail, which Lothal security ID'd and verified.
Communications intercepted during this phase indicated a distress call, and Imperial frequencies relaying targets of interest. The ships operating under Imperial transponders all belonged to former sector defense flotillas under Admiral Kryze, retired, who has been called in for questioning. In response, Admiral Kryze, retired, is inbound to Nakadia on his personal shuttle.
Outcome:
The Harbinger's arrival marked a pivotal moment in the operation. The vessel's presence clinched a win for the Imperial loyalists, forcing timely reclamation of the Cunning Ruse wreck and the safeguarding of its critical intelligence. All LGE assets were accounted for, and briefed, while no civilian or military casualties apart from minor injuries sustained in the operation of escape pods, were reported.
Conclusion:
Operation Silent Roar stands as a testament to the resilience and adaptability of our forces. Despite environmental and situational adversities, the mission was accomplished without compromise to our strategic objectives or exposure to the enemy. The success of this operation further solidifies our position within the sector and demonstrates our capability to operate under the most challenging of circumstances.
General Hera Syndulla
Commanding Officer, Lothal Sector
Note: This document is classified and is intended for the eyes of High Command only. Unauthorized access or dissemination of its contents is strictly prohibited.
--------
Hera: "I'm sorry, Sabine, were you saying something?"
Sabine regarded what to her was an upside down Twi'lek as she finished yet another Jedi meditation, suspended from a support strut of a refueling dongle keeping the Ghost for the moment grounded. "Oh? I must have been muttering to myself. So, we heading out?"
Hera sighed, rubbing her forehead. "No, my orders back were to not use ground assets so close to the festival. I think the LGE is trigger-happy enough as it is."
Sabine dropped to the deck, reaching frantically for her sidearm on the way down. "Darth Maul!" her voice echoed in the Ghost's assigned hangar, her helmet snapping on with a hiss, rangefinder lowering to ready state as she braced for battle.
Hera, skepticism etched across her features, banished the last vestiges of slumber from her eyes with a disbelieving rub. Her mouth already formed the start of 'There is nobody there...' but she paused. On the hologram of what was now the busiest, messiest chunk of their sector (and rerouting a lot of festival traffic to boot) appeared a flurry of red pop-ups. "That's not good. Someone or something's getting through our outer defenses...!?"
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Episode 2 | Part One | Customs & Cultural Sites
New
"Pull yourself together, Hera! That's Maul's handiwork. He is playing mind games with us, I just know it!" hollered Sabine, speaking loudly over the helmet's own speaker in protest.
"Hey mama?" issued a polite question from about level with Hera's utility belt.
Hera pivoted, aghast. "Jacen, what are you doing outside of daycare so early?"
A member of the daycare staff, already done up in festival attire, lowered her choice of Dathomiri mask wittily as she joined their little circle. "It is already after hours, lovelies."
---
Festivities in previous years were a bit more subdued, as the usual string of complaints leveled at Lothal's domed headquarters reached such a crescendo during the big games that additional security was preferred, forestalling uprising as far as Imperial High Command could tell. Though, on this one occasion, they dispatched Pryce to help on the ground with inspection of the gatherings, placing her at checkpoints, the processing for returnees and the like.
Starships were poised to disembark their passengers, including a trio freshly back from a perilous journey on Dathomir. As they were at last permitted to land, their addled rush through the checkpoint caused enough of a commotion that troopers barged in, training their blasters perturbedly. Ezra and his cohorts were in no position to merge with the regular citizens at the drop of a habit, so, Kanan tried covering them up a bit better through the Force.
Even so, from a short way away, Pryce sensed that something was off. Stepping between her troopers, her eyes sharp, she dismissed the pretense of their imaginary cover with a huff. Kanan, all the more attuned as he was to the Force, knew they had to act quickly.
"What remarkable efficiency these scanners have," he remarked casually, gesturing towards the custom agents' devices causing much of the slowdown with a feigned interest that he hoped would seem genuine. He put his back to the troopers assembled, holding out his hand to one agent idling off to the side of the throng, adding in a calm yet authoritative tone: "I know this series, it has its quirks. Why not let me take a look for a moment?"
Crossing their arms and trying to blend in with the crowds in earnest, Ezra and Sabine waited out this absence of boarding documents, though it would be their turn before long. It wasn't like their friendly hosts on Dathomir had offered anything that would clear through customs on their return trip, unless they finagled their way via Darksaber.
At Sabine's prodding, Ezra finally stepped out of the queue to join Kanan, adding his own layer of Force-supplied convincing to the ruse. "Oh, yes indeed. They're almost as good as a Loth-cat at sensing trouble," he quipped, a playful smile which all but dismantled as he saw Governor Pryce looking their way.
Would this diversion ease the tension of the checkpoint, Sabine didn't even want to think about it. She was reliving the traumatic encounter on their previous errand with disquiet, her fingers nervously reaching for her blaster.
"There you three are!" hollered a broad-shouldered Azadi, the former Governor of Lothal. He relinquished the scanner from Kanan's grasp and returned it to the employee, along with clearly spelled out boarding papers, though a bit wrinkled in his haste.
Pryce, momentarily caught up in the banter, allowed a small smile to cross her lips. It was a rare moment of levity in her otherwise stringent routine. Yet, her instincts were not dulled by the exchange. She stepped over, wordlessly processing their documents with a thoroughness that spoke of her dedication to her duties.
One of the troopers, watching over her shoulder, gawked. "Dathomir?"
"'Naught but witches, a slippery bunch," grumbled Pryce, before handing the papers back over to Azadi without hesitation.
Pryce departed quickly, keen to avoid delaying the stream of citizens passing through customs. Thus, the four of them—Ezra, Kanan, Sabine, and Ryder—took a moment to share a collective sigh of relief, followed by a warm fit of chuckles.
Well removed from the festive ambiance, Leera Vess turned a corner inside the grand Command Dome, clad in her academy uniform. She had noticed a moment ago how her amulet had taken on a distinct sheen, which brought her originally to inquire with Thrawn. Instead, she found herself nearing an open-air area that offered a view of the crowd weaving and milling about the starport's returnee checkpoints below.
The scanners resumed their monotonous beeping, signaling the end of the interruption, as the trio parted with Ryder and made for their nearest hideout. Though, before dipping away completely, Ezra paused to regard the Command Dome.
"Hey, hotshot, we turning in?" Kanan murmured over his shoulder, not wanting to wait around more than necessary.
"Yeah, it's nothing."
Leera's own attention was steeled away by the familiar footsteps, indicating the gait of either her instructor, or someone of similar stature. She turned to find Admiral Thrawn, pausing along the same section, regarding the thoroughfare with a measured gaze.
"Miss Vess," he uttered, acknowledging her with a flick of his deeply red eyes. Then, with a slight tilt of his head, he added: "I was considering your query the other day about the amulet. Do you happen to have it on you today?"
"You told me to keep it under wraps," she steadily reminded. As she said this, she winced a bit, her mind already racing. She knew his type, scouring through the layers of meaning in her words, ransacking their poignancy. Yet, he was not the type easily swayed by feelings, emotions. Anything she gave him, each piece, each tidbit and factoid now whirling in his dome was not just a puzzle piece but a part of a well-curated arsenal, ready to be deployed when most advantageous.
And this was just a Taungsday.
He responded to her in his typically enigmatic manner, his voice even and controlled. "The secrets of the amulet, much like the art," he stated.
"I beg your pardon?" Leera tried.
"The Governor is actively participating in the festival, in a manner befitting her position. It's noteworthy, much like your own history, she was raised on Lothal and has familial roots that extend beyond the advent of hyperspace travel."
"I doubt this amulet can be measured like it's sprung from some...reliquary," Leera murmured, stepping closer to confide with him better.
"No, not necessarily that," Thrawn allowed, before contending: "Though its makeup, the ore itself may hold significance. I recognize, now, it was not sourced on Dathomir, I wonder as to whether it is even based on Dathomiri tradition. All that has been uncovered is it was a gift to your parents, from the Pryce mineral library, perhaps to commemorate their union."
"Then, it is unlikely to have any magick--" Leera began.
"I didn't say that," Thrawn spat, before turning away from observing the hubbub and indicating she follow.
Stepping into Thrawn's office, which was decorated with artifacts from countless worlds, Leera silently contemplated whether these objects would witness her becoming just another one of his conquests. Dismissing the thought with disdain, she turned to offer him a knowing smirk.
Thrawn read her body language well enough, and kept straight to the point, indicating a nearby lectern on loan from the governor's office. "Whether the amulet can be traced back here, to Lothal, I doubt Governor Pryce would have any interest in the matter," he argued.
"Why, would it bring back bad memories for her?" Leera wondered.
"Her focus lies in the tangible, although the amulet's composition and enchantments will be of little her concern. Not unless it serves her ambitions." He went stock still, noticing she was producing the amulet in an open palm for them to study further. "Hide that away this instant, witch."
Leera reeled, pocketing the amulet and darting out the door, aghast.
---
Her eyes blinking back to the present, Leera found the link to the HoloNet feed had been reset from the console detecting an idle state. In time to get:
"Leera, are you awake? Did I catch you at a bad hour?"
Merrin was pinging her, just the top half of her visage as she fussed with something out of frame. Then, she stood back, presenting her full form. "Hey there, starlet."
"When did I earn that moniker? My marks at Lothal's academy were sub-stellar. Anyway, no go ahead, what'd you need?"
There was a bit of crosstalk, as Merrin laughed at someone's pun or reference for a bit, then translated: "That all your acting the Imperial goody two-step."
"Two shoes?"
"Right. Oh, I almost forgot, I'm actually stopping by the next cycle or so."
"Festival?" Leera presumed, eyebrows raising. This was unlike her stepsister. "You sure you wouldn't rather lay low until, I dunno, the debris from the Dome stops falling?"
"Hah!" Merrin grinned, before looking alarmedly at a pop-up on her end. "Oh, there's the credits running out again."
"HoloNet isn't cheap," Leera conferred.
"No, neither are the hyperlanes. Well, I guess... oh no you did not," Merrin gasped.
"Tickets for two, stay as long as you like. I could use the distraction from work."
"How is that going, Outer Rim Territories stint?"
"Well, you know about the Empire's defeat?"
"O'er Coruscant?" Merrin glibbed, before fending off a beguiling demand for attention from a diminutive bramble lynx. "Not right now, Squire."
Leera, eager for more updates as there were apparently big changes in her stepsibling's life, leaned away nonplussed. "I'm due back at my post."
"Okay, whoops!" Merrin adjusted her stance as Squire increased the weight on her posture, coiling and clambering haphazardly to her shoulders. "There, there."
With that, the tandem holographic exchange settled into a ripple, the particles surging with feedback and then receding entirely.
---
"That's the last of the escape pods recovered," informed an officer aboard the Jacosta, wiping grit from her brow with a rag before pocketing it in a fold of her half-opened jumpsuit. "That was some fight out there."
"Too right," grumbled the commander of the Cunning Ruse, newly displaced and recuperating with Bacta feeds lining his back. His eyes focus on the confines of this friendly light-cruiser's medical facilities. Before he could inquire as to the status of his own crew, the Jacosta rocked from a powerful hit, the shields apparently only able to mitigate against an outright breach.
On the bridge, Captain Elara tucked her disheveled garb back in and fixed a steely gaze at their helmsman. "Steer us out of range while the nav computer plots us a short hop back to headquarters."
"We're retreating?" inquired a crewmember overseeing the tactical feed.
Nodding, Elara clarified: "We've wounded aboard, and an insufficient quantity of munitions to stick around and fight."
"And we need the shields for Hyperspace. An extra dose of radiation is unwelcome for any biological," the helmsman interjected.
"Hyperspace jump plotted in."
As the stars stretched and Hyperspace engulfed their forward view, the ship's lift produced Leera Vess, back from her break. "Ah, someone's due up for breaks, just in time for the lightshow," inferred the helmsman.
"Yippee," remarked Leera, accepting the AR visor from the bridge officer she was relieving.
The latter, pausing at the lift, exchanged a cautionary glance with the captain, before relating calmly: "The Lt. Cmdr is aboard, recovered from the field of battle."
Leera, having encountered her fair share of surprises for one cycle, let out a raspberry without truly meaning to.
Smirking from this display by a ranking officer, the crewmember overseeing the tactical feed flinched as long-range scans picked up the tail end of the battle chatter.
"Patch it through," Elara grated. "We're only out long enough to resupply."
---
Leaning back from a depleted stack of concussions and ions, a droid helper bemoaned the instructions filtering in from the ship's PA. "And it was just getting interesting."
"I know what you mean," said a weapons tech, before accepting a datapad and surmising the Captain's own assessement of the situation. "We've about three volleys left, port and starboard. If that's the only weapons, worse comes to worse, Captain Elara has the right idea."
"Of course she does," the droid monotones in retort. "The Captain knows this sector better than anyone else aboard."
"Hmm." Then, they both switch gears, as the ship's systems produce a hologram of a squadron commander from the New Republic's forces. "This is Lieutenant Kira to any and all allies of the Republic. Please make your port of calls available for wounded. To facilitate this effort, in short, the suspension on any inbound travel to Lothal is tentatively lifted. Proceed through this region of space at your own peril."
"May the Force be with us," the weapons tech grunted.
---
In the fleeting calm afforded the sector defenses, both New Republic and LGE's forces huddled close, sharing intel in this respite. Though, the clash against the Imperial Remnant, a view of their battle line littered with the debris of the Cunning Ruse, served as a stark reminder of the weakening of their own ranks.
General Tira, a figure to behold, strode across the bridge of her flagship, her mind a whirlwind of strategy and suspicion, the weight of command heavy on her shoulders. With a sudden halt, she faced her aide to voice some of her concerns: "The enemy knew to muster against us, they brought in too much too soon; high time that we entertain the notion of a traitor among us."
---
Taking the lift to belowdecks, Jocasta's Security Chief Halk glanced over transmissions by datapad with a furrowed brow. Then, at last, he found a whisper in the effervescent chatter. It sent a jolt of adrenaline, louder and more pronounced than the lift concluding even with inertial dampeners taking longer, due to the wear and tear on ship systems, to commit. "Spec ops to the bridge, at once!" he commanded, the gravity of potential sabotage taking hold. "Before we are all space debris."
Below decks, Engineer Tessa tarried, her hands unseen, guiding a small helper droid by a control pad, tasking it on a particularly lucrative assignment. It paused between the feet of the weapons tech and assisting droid, lighting a silent beacon.
"Hey mama?" issued a polite question from about level with Hera's utility belt.
Hera pivoted, aghast. "Jacen, what are you doing outside of daycare so early?"
A member of the daycare staff, already done up in festival attire, lowered her choice of Dathomiri mask wittily as she joined their little circle. "It is already after hours, lovelies."
---
Festivities in previous years were a bit more subdued, as the usual string of complaints leveled at Lothal's domed headquarters reached such a crescendo during the big games that additional security was preferred, forestalling uprising as far as Imperial High Command could tell. Though, on this one occasion, they dispatched Pryce to help on the ground with inspection of the gatherings, placing her at checkpoints, the processing for returnees and the like.
Starships were poised to disembark their passengers, including a trio freshly back from a perilous journey on Dathomir. As they were at last permitted to land, their addled rush through the checkpoint caused enough of a commotion that troopers barged in, training their blasters perturbedly. Ezra and his cohorts were in no position to merge with the regular citizens at the drop of a habit, so, Kanan tried covering them up a bit better through the Force.
Even so, from a short way away, Pryce sensed that something was off. Stepping between her troopers, her eyes sharp, she dismissed the pretense of their imaginary cover with a huff. Kanan, all the more attuned as he was to the Force, knew they had to act quickly.
"What remarkable efficiency these scanners have," he remarked casually, gesturing towards the custom agents' devices causing much of the slowdown with a feigned interest that he hoped would seem genuine. He put his back to the troopers assembled, holding out his hand to one agent idling off to the side of the throng, adding in a calm yet authoritative tone: "I know this series, it has its quirks. Why not let me take a look for a moment?"
Crossing their arms and trying to blend in with the crowds in earnest, Ezra and Sabine waited out this absence of boarding documents, though it would be their turn before long. It wasn't like their friendly hosts on Dathomir had offered anything that would clear through customs on their return trip, unless they finagled their way via Darksaber.
At Sabine's prodding, Ezra finally stepped out of the queue to join Kanan, adding his own layer of Force-supplied convincing to the ruse. "Oh, yes indeed. They're almost as good as a Loth-cat at sensing trouble," he quipped, a playful smile which all but dismantled as he saw Governor Pryce looking their way.
Would this diversion ease the tension of the checkpoint, Sabine didn't even want to think about it. She was reliving the traumatic encounter on their previous errand with disquiet, her fingers nervously reaching for her blaster.
"There you three are!" hollered a broad-shouldered Azadi, the former Governor of Lothal. He relinquished the scanner from Kanan's grasp and returned it to the employee, along with clearly spelled out boarding papers, though a bit wrinkled in his haste.
Pryce, momentarily caught up in the banter, allowed a small smile to cross her lips. It was a rare moment of levity in her otherwise stringent routine. Yet, her instincts were not dulled by the exchange. She stepped over, wordlessly processing their documents with a thoroughness that spoke of her dedication to her duties.
One of the troopers, watching over her shoulder, gawked. "Dathomir?"
"'Naught but witches, a slippery bunch," grumbled Pryce, before handing the papers back over to Azadi without hesitation.
Pryce departed quickly, keen to avoid delaying the stream of citizens passing through customs. Thus, the four of them—Ezra, Kanan, Sabine, and Ryder—took a moment to share a collective sigh of relief, followed by a warm fit of chuckles.
Well removed from the festive ambiance, Leera Vess turned a corner inside the grand Command Dome, clad in her academy uniform. She had noticed a moment ago how her amulet had taken on a distinct sheen, which brought her originally to inquire with Thrawn. Instead, she found herself nearing an open-air area that offered a view of the crowd weaving and milling about the starport's returnee checkpoints below.
The scanners resumed their monotonous beeping, signaling the end of the interruption, as the trio parted with Ryder and made for their nearest hideout. Though, before dipping away completely, Ezra paused to regard the Command Dome.
"Hey, hotshot, we turning in?" Kanan murmured over his shoulder, not wanting to wait around more than necessary.
"Yeah, it's nothing."
Leera's own attention was steeled away by the familiar footsteps, indicating the gait of either her instructor, or someone of similar stature. She turned to find Admiral Thrawn, pausing along the same section, regarding the thoroughfare with a measured gaze.
"Miss Vess," he uttered, acknowledging her with a flick of his deeply red eyes. Then, with a slight tilt of his head, he added: "I was considering your query the other day about the amulet. Do you happen to have it on you today?"
"You told me to keep it under wraps," she steadily reminded. As she said this, she winced a bit, her mind already racing. She knew his type, scouring through the layers of meaning in her words, ransacking their poignancy. Yet, he was not the type easily swayed by feelings, emotions. Anything she gave him, each piece, each tidbit and factoid now whirling in his dome was not just a puzzle piece but a part of a well-curated arsenal, ready to be deployed when most advantageous.
And this was just a Taungsday.
He responded to her in his typically enigmatic manner, his voice even and controlled. "The secrets of the amulet, much like the art," he stated.
"I beg your pardon?" Leera tried.
"The Governor is actively participating in the festival, in a manner befitting her position. It's noteworthy, much like your own history, she was raised on Lothal and has familial roots that extend beyond the advent of hyperspace travel."
"I doubt this amulet can be measured like it's sprung from some...reliquary," Leera murmured, stepping closer to confide with him better.
"No, not necessarily that," Thrawn allowed, before contending: "Though its makeup, the ore itself may hold significance. I recognize, now, it was not sourced on Dathomir, I wonder as to whether it is even based on Dathomiri tradition. All that has been uncovered is it was a gift to your parents, from the Pryce mineral library, perhaps to commemorate their union."
"Then, it is unlikely to have any magick--" Leera began.
"I didn't say that," Thrawn spat, before turning away from observing the hubbub and indicating she follow.
Stepping into Thrawn's office, which was decorated with artifacts from countless worlds, Leera silently contemplated whether these objects would witness her becoming just another one of his conquests. Dismissing the thought with disdain, she turned to offer him a knowing smirk.
Thrawn read her body language well enough, and kept straight to the point, indicating a nearby lectern on loan from the governor's office. "Whether the amulet can be traced back here, to Lothal, I doubt Governor Pryce would have any interest in the matter," he argued.
"Why, would it bring back bad memories for her?" Leera wondered.
"Her focus lies in the tangible, although the amulet's composition and enchantments will be of little her concern. Not unless it serves her ambitions." He went stock still, noticing she was producing the amulet in an open palm for them to study further. "Hide that away this instant, witch."
Leera reeled, pocketing the amulet and darting out the door, aghast.
---
Her eyes blinking back to the present, Leera found the link to the HoloNet feed had been reset from the console detecting an idle state. In time to get:
"Leera, are you awake? Did I catch you at a bad hour?"
Merrin was pinging her, just the top half of her visage as she fussed with something out of frame. Then, she stood back, presenting her full form. "Hey there, starlet."
"When did I earn that moniker? My marks at Lothal's academy were sub-stellar. Anyway, no go ahead, what'd you need?"
There was a bit of crosstalk, as Merrin laughed at someone's pun or reference for a bit, then translated: "That all your acting the Imperial goody two-step."
"Two shoes?"
"Right. Oh, I almost forgot, I'm actually stopping by the next cycle or so."
"Festival?" Leera presumed, eyebrows raising. This was unlike her stepsister. "You sure you wouldn't rather lay low until, I dunno, the debris from the Dome stops falling?"
"Hah!" Merrin grinned, before looking alarmedly at a pop-up on her end. "Oh, there's the credits running out again."
"HoloNet isn't cheap," Leera conferred.
"No, neither are the hyperlanes. Well, I guess... oh no you did not," Merrin gasped.
"Tickets for two, stay as long as you like. I could use the distraction from work."
"How is that going, Outer Rim Territories stint?"
"Well, you know about the Empire's defeat?"
"O'er Coruscant?" Merrin glibbed, before fending off a beguiling demand for attention from a diminutive bramble lynx. "Not right now, Squire."
Leera, eager for more updates as there were apparently big changes in her stepsibling's life, leaned away nonplussed. "I'm due back at my post."
"Okay, whoops!" Merrin adjusted her stance as Squire increased the weight on her posture, coiling and clambering haphazardly to her shoulders. "There, there."
With that, the tandem holographic exchange settled into a ripple, the particles surging with feedback and then receding entirely.
---
"That's the last of the escape pods recovered," informed an officer aboard the Jacosta, wiping grit from her brow with a rag before pocketing it in a fold of her half-opened jumpsuit. "That was some fight out there."
"Too right," grumbled the commander of the Cunning Ruse, newly displaced and recuperating with Bacta feeds lining his back. His eyes focus on the confines of this friendly light-cruiser's medical facilities. Before he could inquire as to the status of his own crew, the Jacosta rocked from a powerful hit, the shields apparently only able to mitigate against an outright breach.
On the bridge, Captain Elara tucked her disheveled garb back in and fixed a steely gaze at their helmsman. "Steer us out of range while the nav computer plots us a short hop back to headquarters."
"We're retreating?" inquired a crewmember overseeing the tactical feed.
Nodding, Elara clarified: "We've wounded aboard, and an insufficient quantity of munitions to stick around and fight."
"And we need the shields for Hyperspace. An extra dose of radiation is unwelcome for any biological," the helmsman interjected.
"Hyperspace jump plotted in."
As the stars stretched and Hyperspace engulfed their forward view, the ship's lift produced Leera Vess, back from her break. "Ah, someone's due up for breaks, just in time for the lightshow," inferred the helmsman.
"Yippee," remarked Leera, accepting the AR visor from the bridge officer she was relieving.
The latter, pausing at the lift, exchanged a cautionary glance with the captain, before relating calmly: "The Lt. Cmdr is aboard, recovered from the field of battle."
Leera, having encountered her fair share of surprises for one cycle, let out a raspberry without truly meaning to.
Smirking from this display by a ranking officer, the crewmember overseeing the tactical feed flinched as long-range scans picked up the tail end of the battle chatter.
"Patch it through," Elara grated. "We're only out long enough to resupply."
---
Leaning back from a depleted stack of concussions and ions, a droid helper bemoaned the instructions filtering in from the ship's PA. "And it was just getting interesting."
"I know what you mean," said a weapons tech, before accepting a datapad and surmising the Captain's own assessement of the situation. "We've about three volleys left, port and starboard. If that's the only weapons, worse comes to worse, Captain Elara has the right idea."
"Of course she does," the droid monotones in retort. "The Captain knows this sector better than anyone else aboard."
"Hmm." Then, they both switch gears, as the ship's systems produce a hologram of a squadron commander from the New Republic's forces. "This is Lieutenant Kira to any and all allies of the Republic. Please make your port of calls available for wounded. To facilitate this effort, in short, the suspension on any inbound travel to Lothal is tentatively lifted. Proceed through this region of space at your own peril."
"May the Force be with us," the weapons tech grunted.
---
In the fleeting calm afforded the sector defenses, both New Republic and LGE's forces huddled close, sharing intel in this respite. Though, the clash against the Imperial Remnant, a view of their battle line littered with the debris of the Cunning Ruse, served as a stark reminder of the weakening of their own ranks.
General Tira, a figure to behold, strode across the bridge of her flagship, her mind a whirlwind of strategy and suspicion, the weight of command heavy on her shoulders. With a sudden halt, she faced her aide to voice some of her concerns: "The enemy knew to muster against us, they brought in too much too soon; high time that we entertain the notion of a traitor among us."
---
Taking the lift to belowdecks, Jocasta's Security Chief Halk glanced over transmissions by datapad with a furrowed brow. Then, at last, he found a whisper in the effervescent chatter. It sent a jolt of adrenaline, louder and more pronounced than the lift concluding even with inertial dampeners taking longer, due to the wear and tear on ship systems, to commit. "Spec ops to the bridge, at once!" he commanded, the gravity of potential sabotage taking hold. "Before we are all space debris."
Below decks, Engineer Tessa tarried, her hands unseen, guiding a small helper droid by a control pad, tasking it on a particularly lucrative assignment. It paused between the feet of the weapons tech and assisting droid, lighting a silent beacon.
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Episode 2 | Part Two | Defiant to the Last
New
Aboard the Harbinger, the captain, a visage of smug satisfaction, reveled in the success of their planted operative. With a silent nod to a readout flowing with new insights, the captain turned amicably. "The stage is set, the weapon primed."
"Set for what?" Demanded their Admiral Kryze via secure HoloNet.
"What, you ask? The use of our latest weapon, and one not of metal or matter, but of information, my good Admiral. Its power lies in application and denial. We stand ready to sow seeds of poisonous, ruinous discord within the enemy's data banks." The Captain paused, sweating a bit, before regarding the helmeted officers aboard. "The intercept course for the...Jocasta, was it?"
"Just so, we embark on your orders, sir."
"Are you daft? It's a lone cruiser out there and some support. Just finish them off already!" the Admiral spat.
"All in good time, Admiral. For now, I expect an urgent communique from Mon. Assuming they go by the usual playbook, of course."
---
On the Defiance's bridge, General Tira's eyes narrowed afresh as she pieced together the enemy's strategy. "Signal all units to tighten formation, bring us about for the next attack."
"Aye, aye, General."
All around the MC80a, friendly escorts move with precision, closing ranks and overlapping deflector screens.
At that moment, the sensors detected the Harbinger's side profile as it elegantly pivoted, its Corellian plating shimmering with what seemed like deliberate caution as it readied for an expeditious retreat.
The reinforcing phalanx, meanwhile, finally had the opportunity to show their hand, each ship launching a barrage of missiles that exploded and swarmed like an agitated hornet's nest. The chaos of the missiles, along with the trails of rockets, sufficed to obscure the deactivation of the cloaking devices on their hitherto undisclosed support: Interdictor cruisers, six in number, possibly more, obscured by the cacophony of electronic warfare playing out.
Alarms blared as the Defiance engaged countermeasures. "All hands, brace for impact!" But, surely, it was too late. Watching the onslaught grow from pinprick imprecision to bared, broad and raking the MC80a from stem to stern, General Tira steadied herself against the command console, her expression haggard. "Damage control! Report! Where's our Communications? I want you to reach--!"
The missile barrage, redirected by the Harbinger's own prompt tunneling of the countermeasures with its hyperspace wake, fully encompassed the Defiance, severing all communication lines.
In one gasp, the venerable Mon Calamari vessel vented atmosphere before cleaving in two, its fore section melting under the intense heat, its aft spinning freely away into the abyss.
---
Captain Elara, still removed well enough from action, caught the updates filtering through. She turned to spot Faro, newly taking the lift with the help of a medical droid, a sly glint in her eye. "Well then. What's the plan, Lieutenant?"
---
The rest of the New Republic fleet watched in horror. Yet, amidst the chaos, they rallied, their resolve unshaken.
"For the Republic! For the Republic!" went the chant, as the scattered fighters regrouped, launching a desperate counterattack against the Imps, their laser cannons glowing hot.
---
As Hera and Sabine sifted through the mountain of data recently made available via official channels, they were interrupted by a message on their comlinks. It came from Merrin, a Nightsister and a bit of a celebrity in their movement, having identified with the cause for perhaps longer than the Ghost crew had. She was newly arriving on Lothal to visit her younger sister, Leera Vess.
The Ghost appeared ready, all refueled and cleared for liftoff from dockyard control. Yet, Hera and Sabine were wary of this detour, only knowing snippets about Lothal Galaktik despite their recent escapades with New Republic allies in their sector.
That it was a private security firm where Leera was said to be employed was about all that them and Merrin could call to mind. So, they were on the lookout for a young woman in her early twenties, with light brown hair and striking witches' eyes—a sign of her Dathomiri heritage no less.
Merrin had briefly mentioned that her stepsister was adept at mingling with Lothal types, especially since the Empire's retreat from the planet.
Upon landing, the place appeared empty save for Merrin waiting out front. She welcomed them with warmth, exuding both strength and elegance. "Hera, Sabine, it's...oh! Is this customary?"
"I'm afraid it is," Sabine conferred, pulling out of a cheerily provided embrace.
Wide enough for Hera to butt in. "Merrin, it is an honor. Your exploits are quite renowned."
"What exploits? Surely you mistaken me for my little sister, Leera. Ah, but she's currently out on an assignment."
Sabine, her expression brimming with curiosity and a warrior's resolve: "Maybe so. In any case, do we go in? Or should one of us try hailing her with the Ghost's long-range equipment?"
Merrin waved the suggestion away, so they merely hung out in one of the lounges at Leera's place of work. A droid ambled through, offering them refreshments to which they all obliged, before at length Merrin began recounting her tales albeit with great hesitation.
It was while her glass was needing a refill, when Hera suddenly became aware of the time and nearly chastised herself.
"Is something the matter?" inquired Merrin, sensing a change.
"Jacen. I need to collect him from the village elders at Old Tarkintown," Hera relayed.
Merrin and Sabine paid close attention to Hera's subsequent comlink discussion, watching as perspiration began beading on Hera's forehead. They both recognized that even a mere mention of Tarkintown would lead to details about the Empire's residual influence in their sector if the conversations continued.
Nevertheless, the moment was broken by Sabine's stomach rumbling. She stood abruptly, turning a shade paler as Hera pocketed her comlink to focus on her.
"I guess that ascent was more challenging for either of us than I anticipated."
Merrin, smirking, patted Sabine on the shoulder. "Still, you at least made it back to civilization. I sense much in the way of a Jedi about you, to boot."
Hera: "Who, Sabine? Oh, I get it."
Sabine, brushing Merrin's hand away but thanking her with a soft smile, tried switching gears, but gave up with a pointed look from General Syndulla. "Well, don't we owe it to the real Jedi in our number, to keep up the search?"
Merrin: "Ezra Bridger... I've heard much about him. A powerful ally, if a bit odd. But there is the matter of child. What is our next move?"
Sabine: "Well, food for one, plus finding a better spot to stash little Jacen on our outings. Tarkintown has too many ties."
"There is no starbase buzzing Tarkintown anymore."
"Yeah, but with the Empire's bloodthirsty remnants still at large, we can't be too careful."
Hera: "Agreed, Sabine. In that case, Merrin, your skills could be invaluable here. We could surely use your help in tracking down any leads."
Merrin: "One Kaminoan clone serum at a time. Besides, reaching my Leera may not be as difficult as the two of you make it seems...?"
---
Reeling from the brief jump enabled by the extensively worn Jocasta's engines, Captain Elara approached the edge of the table-like tactical console, before glancing to port as one of the more diminutive repair droids assisting with damage control perked up, remarking electronically at everyone.
Which a protocol droid stationed at one of the consoles hastily translated: "There is a starship on fast approach with no valid transponder codes. It could be the Harbinger."
The captain merely nodded, wordlessly returning to her command post to quickly assess.
"Thank you, BD-10," Leera said in the stillness marked by repair efforts, pondering whether dutiful little company droids were receptive to treats. The prospect of encountering an old Acclamator-class ship evoked strong memories of her previous station, all the way up that pivotal Imperial Commencement Ceremony. She recalled the flotilla in formation overhead, cooling their encampment from the beating Lothalian sun.
"Everybody be alert!" Faro announced sharply. "This is no victory celebration."
"If only the remnants would consider deploying a Victory-class in our sector," a technician mused, ending their thought with a string of pejoratives as the Harbinger newly appeared at close range, no doubt placing its exit from hyperspace just right.
---
Doors whooshed shut behind them as Sabine, Hera and Merrin ventured out into the shuttle access parking.
Sabine was laughing: "No, I've nothing to gain making acquaintances and small talk with your sister. I simply wish to ascertain the whereabouts of a Mr. Bridger."
Hera: "Well, where one finds Ezra, there is still the matter of his hostage."
Merrin, nodding: "I see. Thrawn on the loose again?"
Sabine, blinking: "Well, if we keep delaying, perhaps?"
Hera, smirking: "Ezra is a trained Jedi Knight, Wren."
Merrin, pausing to wake her rented speeder with the usual thumb-press function on a fob, whirled about at these words, a bit livid. "These assertions changes things. I will do what I can. As it stands, the Nightsisters' magic is strongly interlinked to his displacement. However, there is no such shared connection to Ezra."
Hera looked aghast at Sabine, who waved away the inferences.
Sabine: "I was just meditating with Ahsoka again. Taungsday and all."
"Well, we may find him yet," Merrin stated, hiking up her sleeves as she searched instead for the damn controls to the locker stubbornly forcing speeder to remain idle. "Both of you, sit tight. I may need to hitch us a different ride in the back lots."
Hera, surprised: "Oh, we can just as easily take the Phantom!"
Sabine, adamant: "I would love if you chauffeured, Merrin. Do you know the way?"
---
Sitting conspicuously in the docking tethers of another yet to be sanctioned outpost, somewhere near the Republic's own established boundaries around Bespin and Hoth and in signal range to their confidants in the Unknown Region, was the ex-Imperial blockade centerpiece, the Interdictor-class Vermillion Quillon.
The Chiss subcommander on assignment, turned to welcome Admiral Kryze aboard, albeit with a shared look of disdain. "Before you bring it up, we are well aware of Mith'raw'nuruodo's sacrifice in the battle to restore Lothal to it's former glory."
Kryze nodded concernedly. "That information is classified. But what am I saying? Your contributions in this matter have been truly invaluable. It may well bring his whereabouts to light."
"We've merely given your fledglings a potential lead to follow. It is up to you to bring him back."
"Yes, granted this extends our assets a bit too wide. And, even with every stone unturned, us sleuthing about will draw unwanted attention. Better the Grand Admiral simply phoned home."
The Chiss officer, whose name he already forgot, was stationed near enough for the Admiral to detect a shift in respiration as she interjected: "Not 'home' as you would call it. He is merely in a place where he can focus more effectively. This one has been in such situations often, at the risk of appearing aloof."
"The Grand Admiral, aloof? I'm finding that rather hard to believe," said Kryze, skeptical yet intrigued.
"I wouldn't worry yourselves too hard," begat Morgan Elsbeth, for a moment unsteadied as the ship began leaving the confines of the outpost, internal inertial dampeners recalibrating for the transit. She immediately drew upon the beskar-laden shoulder pauldrons of her personal guard for support.
"Hello, Agatha," quipped the old Admiral.
"Tsk tsk, the Empire prides itself on tidyness, though I will allow the mixup with names. The name, dear Admiral Kryze, is Elsbeth. Morgan Elsbeth, of Corvus, more or less."
"How do you mean?" implored the Chiss, hovering near their conference by the bridge-level turbolifts.
"Well, with so many existing Impstars being put down, arranged into a nice display resembling a fanfare or pageant, orchestrated no less by that Chandrilan Tyrant..." Elsbeth ventured, before catching herself. "Ah, you may not recognize the words."
The Chiss stepped closer, which prompted Elsbeth's personal guards to shift about uncomfortably. "No," she stated calmly, allowing the pause as the guards padded her down for secreted weaponry.
Admiral Kryze, brows raised, murmured to his colleague from the planet Corvus. "Is that really necessary?"
"Well, provided the disembarkment goes as planned, and that we are assuredly en route to the Quelli Sector?" the Chiss subcommander sought, smirking past a sharp glower at Elsbeth.
"Well, yes, I should hope so," the Admiral offered, nodding to either of them.
"Hmm, then, this level of security is insufficient. For, my contributions to the hunt will speak for themself, but the same cannot be said for the coven that awaits an agreed upon custody of this Interdictor."
---
In a dimly lit hangar, a hologram flickered to life, projecting the image of Kallus and Zeb acting goofy as they prepared for their latest ride off-planet. Their laughter echoed through the space, a rare moment of levity amidst the constant tension of their missions.
Leera Vess, seated in the adjacent library of her Imperial academy dormitory, watched the recording with a wistful smile. Just then, a follow-up communique pinged, and she quickly activated the magick-imbued pendant around her neck, knowing the ISB was likely listening in. She answered the call, her voice casual, masking the gravity of the imminent conversation.
"Hey there, Ol' Kallus ol' friend. I got your message. What's the latest on the supply run?" she asked, her tone light and conversational.
Kallus's holographic image appeared, his expression serious despite the earlier antics. "Leera, you must understand this is a sensitive matter. I appreciate your earnestness, and your dedication midst all this chaos speaks well to your tutelage. Still, all this will only make the others in our echelon want to scrutinize the cadets. We are pressed for time as it is. And, not just by Thrawn being here. No, there is talk of more interest being shown now, by ones who answer to the Emperor more readily. They are en route to Lothal as we speak," he begat, his voice carrying the weight of many harrowing run-ins between the Rebels and the clockwork determinism of Sector Command. "I must admit, I'm amazed you have taken on this assignment so soon to your commencement, what with your past ties to Dathomiri culture and, well, your possession of that amulet—surely it makes you a target for bullying."
"Set for what?" Demanded their Admiral Kryze via secure HoloNet.
"What, you ask? The use of our latest weapon, and one not of metal or matter, but of information, my good Admiral. Its power lies in application and denial. We stand ready to sow seeds of poisonous, ruinous discord within the enemy's data banks." The Captain paused, sweating a bit, before regarding the helmeted officers aboard. "The intercept course for the...Jocasta, was it?"
"Just so, we embark on your orders, sir."
"Are you daft? It's a lone cruiser out there and some support. Just finish them off already!" the Admiral spat.
"All in good time, Admiral. For now, I expect an urgent communique from Mon. Assuming they go by the usual playbook, of course."
---
On the Defiance's bridge, General Tira's eyes narrowed afresh as she pieced together the enemy's strategy. "Signal all units to tighten formation, bring us about for the next attack."
"Aye, aye, General."
All around the MC80a, friendly escorts move with precision, closing ranks and overlapping deflector screens.
At that moment, the sensors detected the Harbinger's side profile as it elegantly pivoted, its Corellian plating shimmering with what seemed like deliberate caution as it readied for an expeditious retreat.
The reinforcing phalanx, meanwhile, finally had the opportunity to show their hand, each ship launching a barrage of missiles that exploded and swarmed like an agitated hornet's nest. The chaos of the missiles, along with the trails of rockets, sufficed to obscure the deactivation of the cloaking devices on their hitherto undisclosed support: Interdictor cruisers, six in number, possibly more, obscured by the cacophony of electronic warfare playing out.
Alarms blared as the Defiance engaged countermeasures. "All hands, brace for impact!" But, surely, it was too late. Watching the onslaught grow from pinprick imprecision to bared, broad and raking the MC80a from stem to stern, General Tira steadied herself against the command console, her expression haggard. "Damage control! Report! Where's our Communications? I want you to reach--!"
The missile barrage, redirected by the Harbinger's own prompt tunneling of the countermeasures with its hyperspace wake, fully encompassed the Defiance, severing all communication lines.
In one gasp, the venerable Mon Calamari vessel vented atmosphere before cleaving in two, its fore section melting under the intense heat, its aft spinning freely away into the abyss.
---
Captain Elara, still removed well enough from action, caught the updates filtering through. She turned to spot Faro, newly taking the lift with the help of a medical droid, a sly glint in her eye. "Well then. What's the plan, Lieutenant?"
---
The rest of the New Republic fleet watched in horror. Yet, amidst the chaos, they rallied, their resolve unshaken.
"For the Republic! For the Republic!" went the chant, as the scattered fighters regrouped, launching a desperate counterattack against the Imps, their laser cannons glowing hot.
---
As Hera and Sabine sifted through the mountain of data recently made available via official channels, they were interrupted by a message on their comlinks. It came from Merrin, a Nightsister and a bit of a celebrity in their movement, having identified with the cause for perhaps longer than the Ghost crew had. She was newly arriving on Lothal to visit her younger sister, Leera Vess.
The Ghost appeared ready, all refueled and cleared for liftoff from dockyard control. Yet, Hera and Sabine were wary of this detour, only knowing snippets about Lothal Galaktik despite their recent escapades with New Republic allies in their sector.
That it was a private security firm where Leera was said to be employed was about all that them and Merrin could call to mind. So, they were on the lookout for a young woman in her early twenties, with light brown hair and striking witches' eyes—a sign of her Dathomiri heritage no less.
Merrin had briefly mentioned that her stepsister was adept at mingling with Lothal types, especially since the Empire's retreat from the planet.
Upon landing, the place appeared empty save for Merrin waiting out front. She welcomed them with warmth, exuding both strength and elegance. "Hera, Sabine, it's...oh! Is this customary?"
"I'm afraid it is," Sabine conferred, pulling out of a cheerily provided embrace.
Wide enough for Hera to butt in. "Merrin, it is an honor. Your exploits are quite renowned."
"What exploits? Surely you mistaken me for my little sister, Leera. Ah, but she's currently out on an assignment."
Sabine, her expression brimming with curiosity and a warrior's resolve: "Maybe so. In any case, do we go in? Or should one of us try hailing her with the Ghost's long-range equipment?"
Merrin waved the suggestion away, so they merely hung out in one of the lounges at Leera's place of work. A droid ambled through, offering them refreshments to which they all obliged, before at length Merrin began recounting her tales albeit with great hesitation.
It was while her glass was needing a refill, when Hera suddenly became aware of the time and nearly chastised herself.
"Is something the matter?" inquired Merrin, sensing a change.
"Jacen. I need to collect him from the village elders at Old Tarkintown," Hera relayed.
Merrin and Sabine paid close attention to Hera's subsequent comlink discussion, watching as perspiration began beading on Hera's forehead. They both recognized that even a mere mention of Tarkintown would lead to details about the Empire's residual influence in their sector if the conversations continued.
Nevertheless, the moment was broken by Sabine's stomach rumbling. She stood abruptly, turning a shade paler as Hera pocketed her comlink to focus on her.
"I guess that ascent was more challenging for either of us than I anticipated."
Merrin, smirking, patted Sabine on the shoulder. "Still, you at least made it back to civilization. I sense much in the way of a Jedi about you, to boot."
Hera: "Who, Sabine? Oh, I get it."
Sabine, brushing Merrin's hand away but thanking her with a soft smile, tried switching gears, but gave up with a pointed look from General Syndulla. "Well, don't we owe it to the real Jedi in our number, to keep up the search?"
Merrin: "Ezra Bridger... I've heard much about him. A powerful ally, if a bit odd. But there is the matter of child. What is our next move?"
Sabine: "Well, food for one, plus finding a better spot to stash little Jacen on our outings. Tarkintown has too many ties."
"There is no starbase buzzing Tarkintown anymore."
"Yeah, but with the Empire's bloodthirsty remnants still at large, we can't be too careful."
Hera: "Agreed, Sabine. In that case, Merrin, your skills could be invaluable here. We could surely use your help in tracking down any leads."
Merrin: "One Kaminoan clone serum at a time. Besides, reaching my Leera may not be as difficult as the two of you make it seems...?"
---
Reeling from the brief jump enabled by the extensively worn Jocasta's engines, Captain Elara approached the edge of the table-like tactical console, before glancing to port as one of the more diminutive repair droids assisting with damage control perked up, remarking electronically at everyone.
Which a protocol droid stationed at one of the consoles hastily translated: "There is a starship on fast approach with no valid transponder codes. It could be the Harbinger."
The captain merely nodded, wordlessly returning to her command post to quickly assess.
"Thank you, BD-10," Leera said in the stillness marked by repair efforts, pondering whether dutiful little company droids were receptive to treats. The prospect of encountering an old Acclamator-class ship evoked strong memories of her previous station, all the way up that pivotal Imperial Commencement Ceremony. She recalled the flotilla in formation overhead, cooling their encampment from the beating Lothalian sun.
"Everybody be alert!" Faro announced sharply. "This is no victory celebration."
"If only the remnants would consider deploying a Victory-class in our sector," a technician mused, ending their thought with a string of pejoratives as the Harbinger newly appeared at close range, no doubt placing its exit from hyperspace just right.
---
Doors whooshed shut behind them as Sabine, Hera and Merrin ventured out into the shuttle access parking.
Sabine was laughing: "No, I've nothing to gain making acquaintances and small talk with your sister. I simply wish to ascertain the whereabouts of a Mr. Bridger."
Hera: "Well, where one finds Ezra, there is still the matter of his hostage."
Merrin, nodding: "I see. Thrawn on the loose again?"
Sabine, blinking: "Well, if we keep delaying, perhaps?"
Hera, smirking: "Ezra is a trained Jedi Knight, Wren."
Merrin, pausing to wake her rented speeder with the usual thumb-press function on a fob, whirled about at these words, a bit livid. "These assertions changes things. I will do what I can. As it stands, the Nightsisters' magic is strongly interlinked to his displacement. However, there is no such shared connection to Ezra."
Hera looked aghast at Sabine, who waved away the inferences.
Sabine: "I was just meditating with Ahsoka again. Taungsday and all."
"Well, we may find him yet," Merrin stated, hiking up her sleeves as she searched instead for the damn controls to the locker stubbornly forcing speeder to remain idle. "Both of you, sit tight. I may need to hitch us a different ride in the back lots."
Hera, surprised: "Oh, we can just as easily take the Phantom!"
Sabine, adamant: "I would love if you chauffeured, Merrin. Do you know the way?"
---
Sitting conspicuously in the docking tethers of another yet to be sanctioned outpost, somewhere near the Republic's own established boundaries around Bespin and Hoth and in signal range to their confidants in the Unknown Region, was the ex-Imperial blockade centerpiece, the Interdictor-class Vermillion Quillon.
The Chiss subcommander on assignment, turned to welcome Admiral Kryze aboard, albeit with a shared look of disdain. "Before you bring it up, we are well aware of Mith'raw'nuruodo's sacrifice in the battle to restore Lothal to it's former glory."
Kryze nodded concernedly. "That information is classified. But what am I saying? Your contributions in this matter have been truly invaluable. It may well bring his whereabouts to light."
"We've merely given your fledglings a potential lead to follow. It is up to you to bring him back."
"Yes, granted this extends our assets a bit too wide. And, even with every stone unturned, us sleuthing about will draw unwanted attention. Better the Grand Admiral simply phoned home."
The Chiss officer, whose name he already forgot, was stationed near enough for the Admiral to detect a shift in respiration as she interjected: "Not 'home' as you would call it. He is merely in a place where he can focus more effectively. This one has been in such situations often, at the risk of appearing aloof."
"The Grand Admiral, aloof? I'm finding that rather hard to believe," said Kryze, skeptical yet intrigued.
"I wouldn't worry yourselves too hard," begat Morgan Elsbeth, for a moment unsteadied as the ship began leaving the confines of the outpost, internal inertial dampeners recalibrating for the transit. She immediately drew upon the beskar-laden shoulder pauldrons of her personal guard for support.
"Hello, Agatha," quipped the old Admiral.
"Tsk tsk, the Empire prides itself on tidyness, though I will allow the mixup with names. The name, dear Admiral Kryze, is Elsbeth. Morgan Elsbeth, of Corvus, more or less."
"How do you mean?" implored the Chiss, hovering near their conference by the bridge-level turbolifts.
"Well, with so many existing Impstars being put down, arranged into a nice display resembling a fanfare or pageant, orchestrated no less by that Chandrilan Tyrant..." Elsbeth ventured, before catching herself. "Ah, you may not recognize the words."
The Chiss stepped closer, which prompted Elsbeth's personal guards to shift about uncomfortably. "No," she stated calmly, allowing the pause as the guards padded her down for secreted weaponry.
Admiral Kryze, brows raised, murmured to his colleague from the planet Corvus. "Is that really necessary?"
"Well, provided the disembarkment goes as planned, and that we are assuredly en route to the Quelli Sector?" the Chiss subcommander sought, smirking past a sharp glower at Elsbeth.
"Well, yes, I should hope so," the Admiral offered, nodding to either of them.
"Hmm, then, this level of security is insufficient. For, my contributions to the hunt will speak for themself, but the same cannot be said for the coven that awaits an agreed upon custody of this Interdictor."
---
In a dimly lit hangar, a hologram flickered to life, projecting the image of Kallus and Zeb acting goofy as they prepared for their latest ride off-planet. Their laughter echoed through the space, a rare moment of levity amidst the constant tension of their missions.
Leera Vess, seated in the adjacent library of her Imperial academy dormitory, watched the recording with a wistful smile. Just then, a follow-up communique pinged, and she quickly activated the magick-imbued pendant around her neck, knowing the ISB was likely listening in. She answered the call, her voice casual, masking the gravity of the imminent conversation.
"Hey there, Ol' Kallus ol' friend. I got your message. What's the latest on the supply run?" she asked, her tone light and conversational.
Kallus's holographic image appeared, his expression serious despite the earlier antics. "Leera, you must understand this is a sensitive matter. I appreciate your earnestness, and your dedication midst all this chaos speaks well to your tutelage. Still, all this will only make the others in our echelon want to scrutinize the cadets. We are pressed for time as it is. And, not just by Thrawn being here. No, there is talk of more interest being shown now, by ones who answer to the Emperor more readily. They are en route to Lothal as we speak," he begat, his voice carrying the weight of many harrowing run-ins between the Rebels and the clockwork determinism of Sector Command. "I must admit, I'm amazed you have taken on this assignment so soon to your commencement, what with your past ties to Dathomiri culture and, well, your possession of that amulet—surely it makes you a target for bullying."
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Episode 3 | Part One | Reliable Intel
New
Leera found that her fingers were brushing the pendant. It was almost time for lecture, as she began gathering her effects. "Uhh, yes Agent Kallus, I am well versed on the latest intel, now if you please, make good on your commitments while I try to do the same," she replied airily.
Kallus's expression softened. "I've as much a stake in Lothal's liberation," he whispered. "I've seen what the Empire is capable of, the lengths they will go to fulfill one man's thirst for utter control."
"Waytha qual'iway... you think your station gives you the right to question the motives of our Emperor, Kallus?" she countered. But then, "Yeah, I also know that there are things we are not allowed to decipher," she added in aside.
"Ah, there's that Academy conditioning," he besmirched. Then, a bit more business-like: "You know, I've also seen to some improvements to the ISB uniforms. At least for Deep Rim. Expect the tailors to comm. Umm, speaking of dress, are you still in possession of that amulet, Leera? If so, just try to be a bit more cautious—it's a failsafe, or so Arihnda gathers. If that means it can make a way out of a tight situation, heh, well, I can see why you keep it on you."
Their conversation was soon interrupted by the arrival of other cadets, signaling the start of morning rotation and ho-hum training. Leera quickly ended the call, her heart pounding.
Though in a hurry, she still fished the usual treat from a bowl sitting pretty on the front desk on her way out as she donned a security bureau visor, before dropping more than lowering into a seat aboard a school-bound hoversled. She immediately felt a pit forming in her stomach. Why though, she could not readily tell. For her duties revolved around being a bridge officer, not as disposable as those poor, fresh-faced pilots still waiting at the terminal for far more compact a conveyance; she was not someone to be pushed around---no, she was something the Empire fancied.
Smiling to herself, she unwrapped the treat that she had secured and sniffed as to the nature of its flavoring. Other cadets gawked at her, knowing full well it was one of the better tasting varieties.
---
That same visor now sat between Hera and Sabine, Chopper nearby intoning somberly. "Well." The three of them, anxiety showing where it could, went back to regarding the holofeed of the individual responsible for its discovery.
There was for a moment too much feedback, perhaps from festival traffic in system, or something else afoot.
"This is a magnificent find. But, it will take some time to crack into it. Still, while we have you, got any more juicy tidbits about Leera, bud?" Sabine asked at length.
Zeb, reanimating, adjusted the holocam focus on his end to state: "Oh, you're both still there! Sorry about the noise, whether it's you or me. Though, this outpost is busier than Boonta Eve."
Hera scoffed, silently wondering if it was the recent incursion by Imperial remnants. She kept the matter on the backburner for now, nodding to Sabine to carry on.
"Umm? No worries there, Zeb. We still need to ask you about Merrin's little sister, Leera. Hera and I have been trying to piece together her story."
Zeb regarding either of them concernedly for an extended bit caused Hera to sit forward and state pointedly: "Yes, any information you have could be crucial."
Zeb: "Right, well, where to begin really. You know as well as I do about her demise when the Dome dropped off the map, right?"
Sabine and Hera regard him in utter shock.
Zeb, feeling empowered by how much intrigue they were showing all of a sudden, carried on with a belly pat and grin. "Well, before all that, she was attending to her allegiances and whatnot. Something about reclaiming the family fortune, guess there was a lot of falling out between her and Kallus, bless his humble heart."
Sabine was looking mighty uncomfortable but said nothing.
So, Zeb pressed ahead, albeit somewhat tipsily. "Oh yes! She grew up on Lothal, did you know? Her family fortune was in mineral mining. Zoo-nie-something, big demand for that in wartime. Now, for someone of her station, I bet she could wrangle a good price on pretty much anything getting shipped to and from, whether the Empire had a say is a whole other matter. But anyway, why do you ask?"
Merrin, overhearing and deciding to occupy the same holobooth, began steadily listening to Zeb's banter. It was at this rate, that she immediately sneezed.
Zeb shook a bit. "Karabast! Merrin, didn't see you there. You alright?"
Merrin: "Zeb, my adopted sister Leera is very much alive and well. But, mark me well, there are little to no tales to stitch. She maintains that same austereness of a careful and astute naval cadet."
Hera, raising her hands, tried correcting Zeb gently. "Zeb, we were actually asking about Merrin's little sister, Leera, not Pryce."
It was Zeb's turn to look stricken. He recovered, almost spilling his ale as he gesticulated. "Oh, kriff! Sorry about that. Leera, right. Well, I don't know much about her, but I do know she was always a bit of a mystery. Kept to herself but had a knack for getting into places she shouldn't. Merrin was always protective of her."
Sabine looked ready to give him a piece of her mind. She settled with: "Thanks, Zeb. We'll follow up on that lead. And maybe next time, find a quieter spot for our chat?"
Zeb signed off, but not before giving a sheepish: "I'll try, but no promises. Stay safe out there. And Merrin, I'll make it up to you all at the next juncture."
Merrin: "Looking forward to it, Zeb."
---
In another dimly lit environ, this time aboard a confiscated Imperial Interdictor-class cruiser, the atmosphere was a tad more celebratory. For the moment assigned to Morgan Elsbeth, it had been ordered for a coven on Dathomir, its sparse corridors soon to be echoing with the wiles of Nightsisters.
Reparations the Separatist faction had been asked to pay out, if anyone had to guess.
Though, with custody soon to shift judging by the punishment the crew were giving the cruiser's hyperdrive, it did give rise to some questions. Such as how Subcommander Thal'ia'vren, or Lia for short's role, was to persist at the next juncture. She kept her composure for the moment, tall even by Chiss accounts; her blue skin a nice contrast to all the monochromatic, metallic surroundings. Even her deep red eyes gave no sign of this apprehensive state. They sparkled alien-like with pride and amusement. She held a champagne flute delicately in her hand, the bubbles rising slowly to the surface.
Admiral Kryze, an aging remnant of the once-mighty Imperial fleet, stood beside her. His uniform, though worn, still carried its usual air of authority. Although, while they were in transit, he was suddenly of few words, a bit sullen even for his taste. It may have had to do with the Empire's countless battles containing the Rebel sects from rim to rim, surely not the company he was keeping.
For, despite his usually stern demeanor, a fond smile crept across his lips as he raised his own glass.
"Csei s let carcir in'a bah ch'a bun," Lia said, her voice smooth and confident. The phrase, spoken in Cheunh, carried a weight that Kryze could not hope to fully grasp, but he nodded briskly.
"To new alliances," Kryze responded, clinking his glass against hers. The sound echoed through the bridge, a symbol of their shared purpose.
As they sipped their champagne, the ship's sensors picked up the faint signatures of New Republic reconnaissance vessels. But they kept along.
Lia's grin widened, knowing that their mission commander would not entertain such disruptions to the delivery timetable. Nightsisters, shadowsteppers maybe. Somehow they were being watched with such fortuitous intensity. She discarded the idea that these like any dark side wielders could become allies. But, whiling away the hours, smug as they were slaloming from sector to sector aboard this Interdictor-class cruiser, another alliance was about to be forged, one that would shape the future of the galaxy in ways neither the New Republic nor the remnants of the Empire could foresee.
---
Thrawn was pivoting about, the visor feed supplying clearer focus though more on his words than his position in the arena of recording. "Leera Vess, your recent actions have raised several concerns. Do you understand the gravity of your insubordination?"
Leera was out of frame, but her panic registered in how her fingers tapped the polished desk. "I...I was only trying to ascertain their whereabouts, using ways I was instructed, Grand Admiral. The Empire's methods are effective… and yet, still...well, you would know better than anyone."
"What we do is often necessary to maintain order. Recall our lesson on the necessity of discipline, Leera. Without it, chaos reigns."
"Yes, Grand Admiral. But sometimes, the methods seem too extreme."
"Methods must match the threat. Your timing was particularly interesting. Governor Pryce mentioned an unusual influx of returnee passengers during our last conversation."
"I don't see how that relates to me, sir."
"Indeed? Among those passengers were individuals of significant interest—Ezra Bridger, Kanan Jarrus, and Sabine Wren. They were disguised as Customs officers."
"Ah. I had no knowledge of their presence, Grand Admiral."
"Curious. Governor Pryce also noted a peculiar lapse in her usual vigilance as well. One might suspect external influence, perhaps even magick. Remember our discussion on the subtleties of influence and perception?"
Leera reeled, moving into frame, her arms tightly pressed to her sides. "Magick? Sir, are you suggesting I used my abilities to confuse Governor Pryce?"
"I am merely exploring all possibilities. Your connection to Merrin and her teachings is well-documented. Tell me, Leera, did you employ such tactics?"
"No, Grand Admiral. I swear, I did not." At this rate, she reached for her visor, the feed panning to include more of Thrawn's ornate office.
Thrawn was nodding, pausing to consider something. Then, in a measured voice: "Very well, Leftenant Vess. But understand this before you go, the Empire's grip on Lothal must remain wholly unchallenged. Therefore, from this day onward I must admit you into the realm of truth-seeking professionals."
There is the sound of security doors sliding open, and then footsteps, perhaps of ISB operatives assigned to the sector entering.
Leera stood stock still, her head dipping in grim compliance as she wasted no time to state: "I see, will this interfere with my studies...?"
Thrawn made a show of dismissing her remarks, before acknowledging the others in the room. "Good evening, Agents. Now, Miss Vess, it is crucial that you permit these gentlemen to assist in your education. We will start with them taking notes for you in class. Duly ensure that you keep pace, Agent Kallus?"
"I won't disappoint, Grand Admiral."
"No, I should think this is right up your alley."
---
Leera Vess stood on the bridge of the Jocasta, her gaze fixed not on the stars beyond, but on the ones clearing from her vision. The rest of her command was no doubt incapacitated, some perhaps cartwheeling helplessly into space. She turned, the tactical display stretched out before her, a can of ass-whooping, it relayed. She coughed up blood.
So this was now, somehow, her first command, at least one that ventured beyond simulator rounds those rotations before the Dome was ultimately destroyed. It was a moment that should have been her triumph, yet her mind was not on any future battles to come but on the searing pain she felt, pressing a hand to her midsection.
A droid brushed her hand free, applying a medical salve within the window afforded in the cycle time of the Harbinger's sluggish medium turbos.
She was a fighter, born of Dathomir, raised on Lothal under Imperial boot. She was honed and hardened by the ways and wiles of two worlds' peoples, yet belonged fully to neither. Her teachings under Thrawn and Pryce had stilled her misgivings, sharpening her wit like a vibroblade, ready to cut through the chaos of battle with precision and clarity.
But the whispers of her heritage lingered, a siren call to a power she dared not revel in.
As the escort craft, engines underpowered, dipped unintentionally into Lothal's orbit, the reality of her situation settled upon her like a weight.
Below, the victorious Rebel faction did not so much stir, it had the planet dead to rights. What a nest of vipers no longer hidden amongst the populace, daring to strike at the heart of the Empire's ardent peacekeeping efforts. A thought occurred just then, that perhaps their very morale rested upon the departure of the Imperial forces those years ago.
Leera was acutely aware of the high stakes; her usual backup, her classmates, were absent, and her admirers, those who saw her as a role model, were all eyes on her. Her hard-earned reputation, crafted from unwavering discipline and clever strategies, seemed to be on the line.
There, on the Harbinger's bridge, stood a Sith descendant, boldly challenging her, demanding the surrender of her vessel.
Would the Rebels have dared such a bold move? Their strategy to herd the officers into the dome was not just a tactical trap for the leadership but also a bold statement that they were no novices anymore. Leera realized that to match this level of audacity, she had to be as shrewd as her opponents. She needed to harness not only the skills imparted by her mentors but also the innate instincts of her concealed heritage.
Her decision was firm, her resolve now unyielding. She would employ a delay tactic, maneuvering the ship's backup thrusters to create a dizzying pattern that echoed the chaotic constellations above, a strategy that provided ample defense and insight into the enemy's offensive plans—a semblance, a blend of Thrawn's teachings and Pryce's witticisms.
She was determined not to let these Sith revivalists prevail, to prevent her first command from becoming a notable defeat. Surely, it had been rewritten in at least one letter of rec of her ability to transcend her crummy past; to cement her status within the Empire's hierarchy.
Kallus's expression softened. "I've as much a stake in Lothal's liberation," he whispered. "I've seen what the Empire is capable of, the lengths they will go to fulfill one man's thirst for utter control."
"Waytha qual'iway... you think your station gives you the right to question the motives of our Emperor, Kallus?" she countered. But then, "Yeah, I also know that there are things we are not allowed to decipher," she added in aside.
"Ah, there's that Academy conditioning," he besmirched. Then, a bit more business-like: "You know, I've also seen to some improvements to the ISB uniforms. At least for Deep Rim. Expect the tailors to comm. Umm, speaking of dress, are you still in possession of that amulet, Leera? If so, just try to be a bit more cautious—it's a failsafe, or so Arihnda gathers. If that means it can make a way out of a tight situation, heh, well, I can see why you keep it on you."
Their conversation was soon interrupted by the arrival of other cadets, signaling the start of morning rotation and ho-hum training. Leera quickly ended the call, her heart pounding.
Though in a hurry, she still fished the usual treat from a bowl sitting pretty on the front desk on her way out as she donned a security bureau visor, before dropping more than lowering into a seat aboard a school-bound hoversled. She immediately felt a pit forming in her stomach. Why though, she could not readily tell. For her duties revolved around being a bridge officer, not as disposable as those poor, fresh-faced pilots still waiting at the terminal for far more compact a conveyance; she was not someone to be pushed around---no, she was something the Empire fancied.
Smiling to herself, she unwrapped the treat that she had secured and sniffed as to the nature of its flavoring. Other cadets gawked at her, knowing full well it was one of the better tasting varieties.
---
That same visor now sat between Hera and Sabine, Chopper nearby intoning somberly. "Well." The three of them, anxiety showing where it could, went back to regarding the holofeed of the individual responsible for its discovery.
There was for a moment too much feedback, perhaps from festival traffic in system, or something else afoot.
"This is a magnificent find. But, it will take some time to crack into it. Still, while we have you, got any more juicy tidbits about Leera, bud?" Sabine asked at length.
Zeb, reanimating, adjusted the holocam focus on his end to state: "Oh, you're both still there! Sorry about the noise, whether it's you or me. Though, this outpost is busier than Boonta Eve."
Hera scoffed, silently wondering if it was the recent incursion by Imperial remnants. She kept the matter on the backburner for now, nodding to Sabine to carry on.
"Umm? No worries there, Zeb. We still need to ask you about Merrin's little sister, Leera. Hera and I have been trying to piece together her story."
Zeb regarding either of them concernedly for an extended bit caused Hera to sit forward and state pointedly: "Yes, any information you have could be crucial."
Zeb: "Right, well, where to begin really. You know as well as I do about her demise when the Dome dropped off the map, right?"
Sabine and Hera regard him in utter shock.
Zeb, feeling empowered by how much intrigue they were showing all of a sudden, carried on with a belly pat and grin. "Well, before all that, she was attending to her allegiances and whatnot. Something about reclaiming the family fortune, guess there was a lot of falling out between her and Kallus, bless his humble heart."
Sabine was looking mighty uncomfortable but said nothing.
So, Zeb pressed ahead, albeit somewhat tipsily. "Oh yes! She grew up on Lothal, did you know? Her family fortune was in mineral mining. Zoo-nie-something, big demand for that in wartime. Now, for someone of her station, I bet she could wrangle a good price on pretty much anything getting shipped to and from, whether the Empire had a say is a whole other matter. But anyway, why do you ask?"
Merrin, overhearing and deciding to occupy the same holobooth, began steadily listening to Zeb's banter. It was at this rate, that she immediately sneezed.
Zeb shook a bit. "Karabast! Merrin, didn't see you there. You alright?"
Merrin: "Zeb, my adopted sister Leera is very much alive and well. But, mark me well, there are little to no tales to stitch. She maintains that same austereness of a careful and astute naval cadet."
Hera, raising her hands, tried correcting Zeb gently. "Zeb, we were actually asking about Merrin's little sister, Leera, not Pryce."
It was Zeb's turn to look stricken. He recovered, almost spilling his ale as he gesticulated. "Oh, kriff! Sorry about that. Leera, right. Well, I don't know much about her, but I do know she was always a bit of a mystery. Kept to herself but had a knack for getting into places she shouldn't. Merrin was always protective of her."
Sabine looked ready to give him a piece of her mind. She settled with: "Thanks, Zeb. We'll follow up on that lead. And maybe next time, find a quieter spot for our chat?"
Zeb signed off, but not before giving a sheepish: "I'll try, but no promises. Stay safe out there. And Merrin, I'll make it up to you all at the next juncture."
Merrin: "Looking forward to it, Zeb."
---
In another dimly lit environ, this time aboard a confiscated Imperial Interdictor-class cruiser, the atmosphere was a tad more celebratory. For the moment assigned to Morgan Elsbeth, it had been ordered for a coven on Dathomir, its sparse corridors soon to be echoing with the wiles of Nightsisters.
Reparations the Separatist faction had been asked to pay out, if anyone had to guess.
Though, with custody soon to shift judging by the punishment the crew were giving the cruiser's hyperdrive, it did give rise to some questions. Such as how Subcommander Thal'ia'vren, or Lia for short's role, was to persist at the next juncture. She kept her composure for the moment, tall even by Chiss accounts; her blue skin a nice contrast to all the monochromatic, metallic surroundings. Even her deep red eyes gave no sign of this apprehensive state. They sparkled alien-like with pride and amusement. She held a champagne flute delicately in her hand, the bubbles rising slowly to the surface.
Admiral Kryze, an aging remnant of the once-mighty Imperial fleet, stood beside her. His uniform, though worn, still carried its usual air of authority. Although, while they were in transit, he was suddenly of few words, a bit sullen even for his taste. It may have had to do with the Empire's countless battles containing the Rebel sects from rim to rim, surely not the company he was keeping.
For, despite his usually stern demeanor, a fond smile crept across his lips as he raised his own glass.
"Csei s let carcir in'a bah ch'a bun," Lia said, her voice smooth and confident. The phrase, spoken in Cheunh, carried a weight that Kryze could not hope to fully grasp, but he nodded briskly.
"To new alliances," Kryze responded, clinking his glass against hers. The sound echoed through the bridge, a symbol of their shared purpose.
As they sipped their champagne, the ship's sensors picked up the faint signatures of New Republic reconnaissance vessels. But they kept along.
Lia's grin widened, knowing that their mission commander would not entertain such disruptions to the delivery timetable. Nightsisters, shadowsteppers maybe. Somehow they were being watched with such fortuitous intensity. She discarded the idea that these like any dark side wielders could become allies. But, whiling away the hours, smug as they were slaloming from sector to sector aboard this Interdictor-class cruiser, another alliance was about to be forged, one that would shape the future of the galaxy in ways neither the New Republic nor the remnants of the Empire could foresee.
---
Thrawn was pivoting about, the visor feed supplying clearer focus though more on his words than his position in the arena of recording. "Leera Vess, your recent actions have raised several concerns. Do you understand the gravity of your insubordination?"
Leera was out of frame, but her panic registered in how her fingers tapped the polished desk. "I...I was only trying to ascertain their whereabouts, using ways I was instructed, Grand Admiral. The Empire's methods are effective… and yet, still...well, you would know better than anyone."
"What we do is often necessary to maintain order. Recall our lesson on the necessity of discipline, Leera. Without it, chaos reigns."
"Yes, Grand Admiral. But sometimes, the methods seem too extreme."
"Methods must match the threat. Your timing was particularly interesting. Governor Pryce mentioned an unusual influx of returnee passengers during our last conversation."
"I don't see how that relates to me, sir."
"Indeed? Among those passengers were individuals of significant interest—Ezra Bridger, Kanan Jarrus, and Sabine Wren. They were disguised as Customs officers."
"Ah. I had no knowledge of their presence, Grand Admiral."
"Curious. Governor Pryce also noted a peculiar lapse in her usual vigilance as well. One might suspect external influence, perhaps even magick. Remember our discussion on the subtleties of influence and perception?"
Leera reeled, moving into frame, her arms tightly pressed to her sides. "Magick? Sir, are you suggesting I used my abilities to confuse Governor Pryce?"
"I am merely exploring all possibilities. Your connection to Merrin and her teachings is well-documented. Tell me, Leera, did you employ such tactics?"
"No, Grand Admiral. I swear, I did not." At this rate, she reached for her visor, the feed panning to include more of Thrawn's ornate office.
Thrawn was nodding, pausing to consider something. Then, in a measured voice: "Very well, Leftenant Vess. But understand this before you go, the Empire's grip on Lothal must remain wholly unchallenged. Therefore, from this day onward I must admit you into the realm of truth-seeking professionals."
There is the sound of security doors sliding open, and then footsteps, perhaps of ISB operatives assigned to the sector entering.
Leera stood stock still, her head dipping in grim compliance as she wasted no time to state: "I see, will this interfere with my studies...?"
Thrawn made a show of dismissing her remarks, before acknowledging the others in the room. "Good evening, Agents. Now, Miss Vess, it is crucial that you permit these gentlemen to assist in your education. We will start with them taking notes for you in class. Duly ensure that you keep pace, Agent Kallus?"
"I won't disappoint, Grand Admiral."
"No, I should think this is right up your alley."
---
Leera Vess stood on the bridge of the Jocasta, her gaze fixed not on the stars beyond, but on the ones clearing from her vision. The rest of her command was no doubt incapacitated, some perhaps cartwheeling helplessly into space. She turned, the tactical display stretched out before her, a can of ass-whooping, it relayed. She coughed up blood.
So this was now, somehow, her first command, at least one that ventured beyond simulator rounds those rotations before the Dome was ultimately destroyed. It was a moment that should have been her triumph, yet her mind was not on any future battles to come but on the searing pain she felt, pressing a hand to her midsection.
A droid brushed her hand free, applying a medical salve within the window afforded in the cycle time of the Harbinger's sluggish medium turbos.
She was a fighter, born of Dathomir, raised on Lothal under Imperial boot. She was honed and hardened by the ways and wiles of two worlds' peoples, yet belonged fully to neither. Her teachings under Thrawn and Pryce had stilled her misgivings, sharpening her wit like a vibroblade, ready to cut through the chaos of battle with precision and clarity.
But the whispers of her heritage lingered, a siren call to a power she dared not revel in.
As the escort craft, engines underpowered, dipped unintentionally into Lothal's orbit, the reality of her situation settled upon her like a weight.
Below, the victorious Rebel faction did not so much stir, it had the planet dead to rights. What a nest of vipers no longer hidden amongst the populace, daring to strike at the heart of the Empire's ardent peacekeeping efforts. A thought occurred just then, that perhaps their very morale rested upon the departure of the Imperial forces those years ago.
Leera was acutely aware of the high stakes; her usual backup, her classmates, were absent, and her admirers, those who saw her as a role model, were all eyes on her. Her hard-earned reputation, crafted from unwavering discipline and clever strategies, seemed to be on the line.
There, on the Harbinger's bridge, stood a Sith descendant, boldly challenging her, demanding the surrender of her vessel.
Would the Rebels have dared such a bold move? Their strategy to herd the officers into the dome was not just a tactical trap for the leadership but also a bold statement that they were no novices anymore. Leera realized that to match this level of audacity, she had to be as shrewd as her opponents. She needed to harness not only the skills imparted by her mentors but also the innate instincts of her concealed heritage.
Her decision was firm, her resolve now unyielding. She would employ a delay tactic, maneuvering the ship's backup thrusters to create a dizzying pattern that echoed the chaotic constellations above, a strategy that provided ample defense and insight into the enemy's offensive plans—a semblance, a blend of Thrawn's teachings and Pryce's witticisms.
She was determined not to let these Sith revivalists prevail, to prevent her first command from becoming a notable defeat. Surely, it had been rewritten in at least one letter of rec of her ability to transcend her crummy past; to cement her status within the Empire's hierarchy.
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Episode 3 | Part Two | Tano
New
As the conflict between the two vessels pressed on, Leera's fingers danced purposefully across the control module, point defense cannons discharging in rhythmic bursts, the remnants of the last volleys still searing. The Harbinger, though less nimble, was remarkably tenacious, its crew evidently well-versed in all Imperial tactics, their cannons firing eagerly.
Yet, Leera remained steadfast. She willed her racing heart to steadiness, a calm that masked the turmoil within, each command a stride toward triumph, each maneuver a repudiation of the chaos the Rebels had once aimed to unleash.
Just in time for the Lothalian planetary defenses to finish warming up, a volley of orange and yellow belching up to embrace the Harbinger, knocking out its deck lights and engines in a seemingly benign yet unannounced manner.
Sighing, Leera glanced down at long last at the wound the ship's relic of a medical droid was fussing over. "So anticlimactic of them. Figures."
---
Hera, Sabine and Merrin, having all now ventured far from the capital, were welcomed by some attendants leading them into the daycare abode. They navigated through some new infrastructure, over a site once known as Tarkintown.
In the decade since the Empire razed the camp, it had transformed into a robust settlement. The makeshift structures were replaced by modern medical and community centers, and even a school. The central square thrived as a marketplace, thanks to the dedication to improving living standards. The surrounding lands were just as lively, with farming guilds employing advanced Lothalian techniques to great success.
All around, the air was filled with the scent of ionized engines and freshly tilled soil as farming droids worked the fields in the distance, their bustle a welcome change.
Sabine Wren's keen eyes caught a flicker of movement at the edge of the settlement. Now there was a burly Lothalian whose allegiances were never really his forte. She sighed.
Shadows began stretching out in the late afternoon sun as their group ambled forth. Renking's surprise was palpable, but he quickly recovered, busying for a moment with a cluster of farming droids until they got within earshot. He pivoted. "Ah, Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren, and... my word, a member of the Nightsisters isn't it?" he stammered, the word catching in his throat.
Hera's gaze was of the caliber that surely held the whole Ghost crew together. "Renking," she called out, pausing mid-stride, her voice steady. "You're a long way from an Imperial cell."
Renking nodded, but before anyone could further inquire, the planetary defenses suddenly kicked in, illuminating the environment with an otherworldly glow and causing everybody to stagger back a bit.
Jacen, ever curious, looked up at his mother's antics and inquired, "Mom, what's that?"
With a hardly convincing feigned smile, Hera remarked soothingly: "It's just the festival, sweetheart. They're starting the fireworks test early for tonight."
Giving up in his attempt to get his crop mitigating drones to cooperate, Renking turned, removing his grease-laden gloves to shake everybody's hands in greeting. "Well, anyway. Glad you all could make it, today. We're just about to roll out some produce for the festival in the big city."
"Hera, who is that?" Jacen asked nervously.
"Oh, you two have never met, I take it? Jacen, meet Mr. Renking. Like Azadi, he used to represent Lothal," Hera supplied.
"In the curmudgeonly Imperial Senate, which people never fail to remind me."
"Hey, at least you got out of jail when Lothal was liberated," Sabine countered, removing her helmet and smirking.
Renking's sigh, given his history in keeping the citizenry all but shackled by the big bad Galactic Empire, was understandable. "Oh, that was all Elara Vess, my replacement," he muttered after a spell.
"Who?" Merrin sought, eyes widening.
"Ah, umm, well she's a beginner at a lot of the theatrics, so you probably wouldn't know about her. But, Senate dissolved or no, she got us through some pretty dark times. She effectively runs that Lothal Galaktik outfit."
Sabine's curiosity burgeoning was instantly outclassed by Merrin's attempt at interrogation as the latter nearly bowled her over, reevaluating the old Lothalian. "Where might I find this Elara Vess?" she demanded, emphasizing the name.
Renking could only nod, his pride evident. "She enrolled her daughter in the Academy. Were you one of her classmates, perhaps? Now, there was that upper echelon signatorial nobility, but with a rebel's heart, what a contradiction. But, so was our society under the Republic before it."
Merrin forsook reacting to his rambling, her thoughts were simply careening. "And now what? Where can I find Elara. Speak!"
"Ah, she's with us," mused one of the caregivers seeing to the handoff of other children as the daycare began closing for the day. "A captain in the New Republic."
"Well, pepper my behind," Renking uttered. "That's news to me."
Hera's expression softened, the lines of battle easing. "She's one of the good ones," she whispered, her thoughts centering on the promotions she received, none of which hid the pain well enough.
Renking nodded sagely. "Well, she's taken to righting many a wrong, and perhaps, so can I."
"How do you mean, Mr. Senator?" implored Jacen.
"Well, the end of the Empire is just beginning, ain't it? People still have a lot of work ahead of them rebuilding, healing, or helping finish all the fighting. But, you know better than I little tyke, all of it is for a better tomorrow, continuously I might add."
"That's the spirit, Senator," quipped Sabine. Everyone chuckled for a bit. Then, her determination rose to the fore, sharp and ready as she plotted their next move. "Merrin, we'll help you track this person down."
"That would be nice," Merrin advised, before frowning. Something felt wrong about their gathering, not necessarily the people present, but the choice of location. She focused inward.
True, that in the heart of every Lothalian, much like her own path, there was the spirit of rebellion burning eternal, a flame that not even the darkest of times could ever try to extinguish.
And then, there were the more flammable elements of resistance in particular, some of which had been showering about the former campsite, the cause and need for cleanup of said debris was something that Sector Defense was keeping secret. Though, Merrin, and perhaps General Syndulla, were fully aware and, if she had to gather, it was only because Jacen was too young to grasp these big changes for the Outer Rim did she with all the intel still parrot some of their discretion.
That was her assertion, until more substantial pieces began to fall from the sky right then and there.
"That's not the first holophoto I've taken today," Hera, off the side, was remarking, apparently appreciating the interruption but, while spinning around to gauge the source of the impact tremors, wishing it wasn't of such caliber. She frowned, before dipping her head as Jacen was all the while pulling at her sleeve. "What's up?"
"Exactly," Merrin interjected, navigating through their group to track the descent of the Lothal Galaktik escort vessel, preparing her powers for potential use. "It's one of their state-of-the-art light cruisers. Odd that it's been disabled so quickly."
"It appears to be functioning on minimal power, but indeed, it seems like it--" then Sabine paused, listening to her helmet mic. "Yeah, she really took a beating. That's turbolaser scoring."
"Everyone, let's go help!" Renking roared.
"It's not yet grounded, we should hang back until we know the situation," Hera cautioned, scooping Jacen up into her arms and angling to allow some Tarkintowners to afford to squeeze past her and muster their own town-sized response around the old Senator.
When at last the vessel finished coursing unsteadily into one of the available spaces in the New Republic's Auxiliary starport; itself really just a repair and refueling depot built before the rest of Tarkintown was reopened, Sabine and Merrin led the charge. Hera tensed, watching a bit forlornly as dock workers, caught in the light cruiser's sputtering, puttering wake, rushed back and forth, coughing and disdainfully blowing smoke from their eyes.
"Bad batch of fireworks?" Jacen sought.
"Yes, love," she considered aloud, patting little Jacen's hair and running fingers about the nape of his neck consolingly. "Fireworks will do that at times."
Sabine was first to arrive on the scene, her rockets idling down as she did a bit of a double-take. "Oh, just great."
There, occupying the other half of the landing bay, was an old freighter of the type Tano used to fly with her master on various missions.
And there, bumbling down the access ramp, was Huyang.
Sabine, wordlessly, tried indicating the wreck needing attention.
"That is of Lothal Galaktik concern. Please, Miss Tano awaits your presence aboard her vessel."
"This big relic?" Sabine couldn't help but quip.
"I must say, I resemble that remark, Lady Wren," came the retort.
---
In the ample glow of the old light freighter's lounge, Ahsoka's revelation hung heavy in the air. Sabine, her mind racing with the weight of this new knowledge, felt the none too accommodating walls of the Rigger-class closing in around her. Considering the interior was packed to the brim with the usual supplies to the orphanages scattered about the rebuilt encampment.
"Could you perhaps run that by me again?"
"It's easier if I just show you."
It was of course about the World Between Worlds. Apparently, with some training, it was expected that Sabine could tap into the same anomaly.
But that was not the immediate task.
Sabine sighed, setting her helmet aside and double-checking the work on the downed LGE light cruiser through the forward viewport. She turned back to face Ahsoka, mulling this over. "So, what do you need me to do, exactly?"
"There was a lot of excitement today, it seems. Let us first find a bit of solace, by dimming the lights. If you would please, Huyang?"
At her behest, Huyang escorted Sabine to sit in the meditation circle before adjusting the cargo hold lighting accordingly.
Somberly, about to begin the meditative trance afresh, Ahsoka reopened her eyes, leaning forward to impart a revelation she felt merited explanation. "The truth I'm about to share," Ahsoka began, "must remain between us—understood?"
Then, without further ado, she reached into the enigmatic World Between Worlds, putting aside thoughts of her former master, of her clashes with Vader in the preceding decade. A specific vision, one that could reshape history's trajectory and this time without Palpatine's influence.
Muttering about sweat lining his battle helm, Clone Commander Cody faced a bit of an existential crisis, torn from a calamitous engagement, wrestling with a situation that defied even his understanding.
He turned to regard the apprentice under Master Skywalker's care, Ms. Tano. But instead, Sabine stood there, looking just as flummoxed.
---
"Now they will know the strength of our resolve," uttered Elsbeth, withdrawing a ceremonial blade usually reserved for special occasions on her home planet, from the unguarded abdomen of the Chiss subcommander. The individual swayed, teetering on the brink of unconsciousness, as the crew hurried to provide assistance.
Admiral Kryze strode over, oblivious at first until he saw the blood pooling on the deck. "What sort of subterfuge is this? Is there a medical officer aboard?"
"Belay that," Morgan countermanded, handing the scepter over to one of her agents.
"She'll die if left to bleed like that!"
"Those were my orders. Now, anyone who questions them, anyone who wants to suffer the wrath of my coven back from the brink--" she didn't even need to speak at length, as Kryze whistled for bridge officers to restrain her. Her eyes glinted as dark, vericose-like patterns emanated from their sockets, flaring and shaping into runes along her forearms, culminating at Morgan's outstretched fingers. "We can't afford the New Republic taking further interest in the Outer Rim, not while my associates continue sorting out precisely what happened to the Grand Admiral. One step closer, will be your undoing."
From the turbolifts, at least ten Nightsisters strode forth, pointing at various members of the bridge detail to honor the transaction.
Of course, had it been worded more plainly, the Imperial remnants would have never entertained this sale of ship... and apparently its crew.
---
Well removed from the tomfoolery in low orbit over Dathomir, Sabine Wren continued to be of solemn audience with the past. Commander Cody, taking time to process the person now standing there in lieu of Gen. Skywalker's apprentice, spoke at long last. "Why wasn't this brought to the Grand Army's attention sooner?"
Ahsoka's voice came through, touched by the naivety of her youth, perhaps to soften the disintegration of Cody's known reality. "The Sith's deception is profound, Cody," she spoke from another time. "It's a shadow that has hung over us, a darkness that shaped your very existence."
Cody, suspecting a glitch in his helmet, removed it to survey the battlefield, which appeared momentarily still. His expression was a perfect facade of stoicism, sculpted by countless battles. "This is monumental. To consider that his heritage, Jango's, all of it, was merely a ruse."
"Indeed. It was a strategic move, investing all those resources into creating the Clone Army. Yet, in truth, you and your fellow soldiers were just pawns in a Sith's elaborate scheme."
Sabine watched as the stoic soldier's facade cracked, revealing a tumult of conflict within. "To have been bred for obedience, to follow orders without question," Cody reflected, "and to now see those orders were born of such evil—it's a bitter pill to swallow, to say the least."
Ahsoka, her spirit resonating with his grievances, was doing as far as Sabine could tell, a swell job speaking empathetically, aware of the clone's plight those years ago. "You were more than soldiers; you were individuals with hearts and minds," she assured. "The Sith may have shaped your beginnings, but your choices have always been your own. And, I for one, will continue to honor the sacrifices that have been made."
Sabine, kneeling on the ground, retrieved Cody's helmet and started making etches in the dust accumulated on its plasteel surfaces. Her own heart was duly heavy with the weight of her people's betrayal. She found a kindred spirit in Cody's struggle, and kind of wished she had been there to help.
"To carry such knowledge is a burden, yet also a call to action," Sabine mused, rising. "We, the survivors of wars and empires, must use this truth to foster a more honest outcome, one built on understanding."
Yet, Leera remained steadfast. She willed her racing heart to steadiness, a calm that masked the turmoil within, each command a stride toward triumph, each maneuver a repudiation of the chaos the Rebels had once aimed to unleash.
Just in time for the Lothalian planetary defenses to finish warming up, a volley of orange and yellow belching up to embrace the Harbinger, knocking out its deck lights and engines in a seemingly benign yet unannounced manner.
Sighing, Leera glanced down at long last at the wound the ship's relic of a medical droid was fussing over. "So anticlimactic of them. Figures."
---
Hera, Sabine and Merrin, having all now ventured far from the capital, were welcomed by some attendants leading them into the daycare abode. They navigated through some new infrastructure, over a site once known as Tarkintown.
In the decade since the Empire razed the camp, it had transformed into a robust settlement. The makeshift structures were replaced by modern medical and community centers, and even a school. The central square thrived as a marketplace, thanks to the dedication to improving living standards. The surrounding lands were just as lively, with farming guilds employing advanced Lothalian techniques to great success.
All around, the air was filled with the scent of ionized engines and freshly tilled soil as farming droids worked the fields in the distance, their bustle a welcome change.
Sabine Wren's keen eyes caught a flicker of movement at the edge of the settlement. Now there was a burly Lothalian whose allegiances were never really his forte. She sighed.
Shadows began stretching out in the late afternoon sun as their group ambled forth. Renking's surprise was palpable, but he quickly recovered, busying for a moment with a cluster of farming droids until they got within earshot. He pivoted. "Ah, Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren, and... my word, a member of the Nightsisters isn't it?" he stammered, the word catching in his throat.
Hera's gaze was of the caliber that surely held the whole Ghost crew together. "Renking," she called out, pausing mid-stride, her voice steady. "You're a long way from an Imperial cell."
Renking nodded, but before anyone could further inquire, the planetary defenses suddenly kicked in, illuminating the environment with an otherworldly glow and causing everybody to stagger back a bit.
Jacen, ever curious, looked up at his mother's antics and inquired, "Mom, what's that?"
With a hardly convincing feigned smile, Hera remarked soothingly: "It's just the festival, sweetheart. They're starting the fireworks test early for tonight."
Giving up in his attempt to get his crop mitigating drones to cooperate, Renking turned, removing his grease-laden gloves to shake everybody's hands in greeting. "Well, anyway. Glad you all could make it, today. We're just about to roll out some produce for the festival in the big city."
"Hera, who is that?" Jacen asked nervously.
"Oh, you two have never met, I take it? Jacen, meet Mr. Renking. Like Azadi, he used to represent Lothal," Hera supplied.
"In the curmudgeonly Imperial Senate, which people never fail to remind me."
"Hey, at least you got out of jail when Lothal was liberated," Sabine countered, removing her helmet and smirking.
Renking's sigh, given his history in keeping the citizenry all but shackled by the big bad Galactic Empire, was understandable. "Oh, that was all Elara Vess, my replacement," he muttered after a spell.
"Who?" Merrin sought, eyes widening.
"Ah, umm, well she's a beginner at a lot of the theatrics, so you probably wouldn't know about her. But, Senate dissolved or no, she got us through some pretty dark times. She effectively runs that Lothal Galaktik outfit."
Sabine's curiosity burgeoning was instantly outclassed by Merrin's attempt at interrogation as the latter nearly bowled her over, reevaluating the old Lothalian. "Where might I find this Elara Vess?" she demanded, emphasizing the name.
Renking could only nod, his pride evident. "She enrolled her daughter in the Academy. Were you one of her classmates, perhaps? Now, there was that upper echelon signatorial nobility, but with a rebel's heart, what a contradiction. But, so was our society under the Republic before it."
Merrin forsook reacting to his rambling, her thoughts were simply careening. "And now what? Where can I find Elara. Speak!"
"Ah, she's with us," mused one of the caregivers seeing to the handoff of other children as the daycare began closing for the day. "A captain in the New Republic."
"Well, pepper my behind," Renking uttered. "That's news to me."
Hera's expression softened, the lines of battle easing. "She's one of the good ones," she whispered, her thoughts centering on the promotions she received, none of which hid the pain well enough.
Renking nodded sagely. "Well, she's taken to righting many a wrong, and perhaps, so can I."
"How do you mean, Mr. Senator?" implored Jacen.
"Well, the end of the Empire is just beginning, ain't it? People still have a lot of work ahead of them rebuilding, healing, or helping finish all the fighting. But, you know better than I little tyke, all of it is for a better tomorrow, continuously I might add."
"That's the spirit, Senator," quipped Sabine. Everyone chuckled for a bit. Then, her determination rose to the fore, sharp and ready as she plotted their next move. "Merrin, we'll help you track this person down."
"That would be nice," Merrin advised, before frowning. Something felt wrong about their gathering, not necessarily the people present, but the choice of location. She focused inward.
True, that in the heart of every Lothalian, much like her own path, there was the spirit of rebellion burning eternal, a flame that not even the darkest of times could ever try to extinguish.
And then, there were the more flammable elements of resistance in particular, some of which had been showering about the former campsite, the cause and need for cleanup of said debris was something that Sector Defense was keeping secret. Though, Merrin, and perhaps General Syndulla, were fully aware and, if she had to gather, it was only because Jacen was too young to grasp these big changes for the Outer Rim did she with all the intel still parrot some of their discretion.
That was her assertion, until more substantial pieces began to fall from the sky right then and there.
"That's not the first holophoto I've taken today," Hera, off the side, was remarking, apparently appreciating the interruption but, while spinning around to gauge the source of the impact tremors, wishing it wasn't of such caliber. She frowned, before dipping her head as Jacen was all the while pulling at her sleeve. "What's up?"
"Exactly," Merrin interjected, navigating through their group to track the descent of the Lothal Galaktik escort vessel, preparing her powers for potential use. "It's one of their state-of-the-art light cruisers. Odd that it's been disabled so quickly."
"It appears to be functioning on minimal power, but indeed, it seems like it--" then Sabine paused, listening to her helmet mic. "Yeah, she really took a beating. That's turbolaser scoring."
"Everyone, let's go help!" Renking roared.
"It's not yet grounded, we should hang back until we know the situation," Hera cautioned, scooping Jacen up into her arms and angling to allow some Tarkintowners to afford to squeeze past her and muster their own town-sized response around the old Senator.
When at last the vessel finished coursing unsteadily into one of the available spaces in the New Republic's Auxiliary starport; itself really just a repair and refueling depot built before the rest of Tarkintown was reopened, Sabine and Merrin led the charge. Hera tensed, watching a bit forlornly as dock workers, caught in the light cruiser's sputtering, puttering wake, rushed back and forth, coughing and disdainfully blowing smoke from their eyes.
"Bad batch of fireworks?" Jacen sought.
"Yes, love," she considered aloud, patting little Jacen's hair and running fingers about the nape of his neck consolingly. "Fireworks will do that at times."
Sabine was first to arrive on the scene, her rockets idling down as she did a bit of a double-take. "Oh, just great."
There, occupying the other half of the landing bay, was an old freighter of the type Tano used to fly with her master on various missions.
And there, bumbling down the access ramp, was Huyang.
Sabine, wordlessly, tried indicating the wreck needing attention.
"That is of Lothal Galaktik concern. Please, Miss Tano awaits your presence aboard her vessel."
"This big relic?" Sabine couldn't help but quip.
"I must say, I resemble that remark, Lady Wren," came the retort.
---
In the ample glow of the old light freighter's lounge, Ahsoka's revelation hung heavy in the air. Sabine, her mind racing with the weight of this new knowledge, felt the none too accommodating walls of the Rigger-class closing in around her. Considering the interior was packed to the brim with the usual supplies to the orphanages scattered about the rebuilt encampment.
"Could you perhaps run that by me again?"
"It's easier if I just show you."
It was of course about the World Between Worlds. Apparently, with some training, it was expected that Sabine could tap into the same anomaly.
But that was not the immediate task.
Sabine sighed, setting her helmet aside and double-checking the work on the downed LGE light cruiser through the forward viewport. She turned back to face Ahsoka, mulling this over. "So, what do you need me to do, exactly?"
"There was a lot of excitement today, it seems. Let us first find a bit of solace, by dimming the lights. If you would please, Huyang?"
At her behest, Huyang escorted Sabine to sit in the meditation circle before adjusting the cargo hold lighting accordingly.
Somberly, about to begin the meditative trance afresh, Ahsoka reopened her eyes, leaning forward to impart a revelation she felt merited explanation. "The truth I'm about to share," Ahsoka began, "must remain between us—understood?"
Then, without further ado, she reached into the enigmatic World Between Worlds, putting aside thoughts of her former master, of her clashes with Vader in the preceding decade. A specific vision, one that could reshape history's trajectory and this time without Palpatine's influence.
Muttering about sweat lining his battle helm, Clone Commander Cody faced a bit of an existential crisis, torn from a calamitous engagement, wrestling with a situation that defied even his understanding.
He turned to regard the apprentice under Master Skywalker's care, Ms. Tano. But instead, Sabine stood there, looking just as flummoxed.
---
"Now they will know the strength of our resolve," uttered Elsbeth, withdrawing a ceremonial blade usually reserved for special occasions on her home planet, from the unguarded abdomen of the Chiss subcommander. The individual swayed, teetering on the brink of unconsciousness, as the crew hurried to provide assistance.
Admiral Kryze strode over, oblivious at first until he saw the blood pooling on the deck. "What sort of subterfuge is this? Is there a medical officer aboard?"
"Belay that," Morgan countermanded, handing the scepter over to one of her agents.
"She'll die if left to bleed like that!"
"Those were my orders. Now, anyone who questions them, anyone who wants to suffer the wrath of my coven back from the brink--" she didn't even need to speak at length, as Kryze whistled for bridge officers to restrain her. Her eyes glinted as dark, vericose-like patterns emanated from their sockets, flaring and shaping into runes along her forearms, culminating at Morgan's outstretched fingers. "We can't afford the New Republic taking further interest in the Outer Rim, not while my associates continue sorting out precisely what happened to the Grand Admiral. One step closer, will be your undoing."
From the turbolifts, at least ten Nightsisters strode forth, pointing at various members of the bridge detail to honor the transaction.
Of course, had it been worded more plainly, the Imperial remnants would have never entertained this sale of ship... and apparently its crew.
---
Well removed from the tomfoolery in low orbit over Dathomir, Sabine Wren continued to be of solemn audience with the past. Commander Cody, taking time to process the person now standing there in lieu of Gen. Skywalker's apprentice, spoke at long last. "Why wasn't this brought to the Grand Army's attention sooner?"
Ahsoka's voice came through, touched by the naivety of her youth, perhaps to soften the disintegration of Cody's known reality. "The Sith's deception is profound, Cody," she spoke from another time. "It's a shadow that has hung over us, a darkness that shaped your very existence."
Cody, suspecting a glitch in his helmet, removed it to survey the battlefield, which appeared momentarily still. His expression was a perfect facade of stoicism, sculpted by countless battles. "This is monumental. To consider that his heritage, Jango's, all of it, was merely a ruse."
"Indeed. It was a strategic move, investing all those resources into creating the Clone Army. Yet, in truth, you and your fellow soldiers were just pawns in a Sith's elaborate scheme."
Sabine watched as the stoic soldier's facade cracked, revealing a tumult of conflict within. "To have been bred for obedience, to follow orders without question," Cody reflected, "and to now see those orders were born of such evil—it's a bitter pill to swallow, to say the least."
Ahsoka, her spirit resonating with his grievances, was doing as far as Sabine could tell, a swell job speaking empathetically, aware of the clone's plight those years ago. "You were more than soldiers; you were individuals with hearts and minds," she assured. "The Sith may have shaped your beginnings, but your choices have always been your own. And, I for one, will continue to honor the sacrifices that have been made."
Sabine, kneeling on the ground, retrieved Cody's helmet and started making etches in the dust accumulated on its plasteel surfaces. Her own heart was duly heavy with the weight of her people's betrayal. She found a kindred spirit in Cody's struggle, and kind of wished she had been there to help.
"To carry such knowledge is a burden, yet also a call to action," Sabine mused, rising. "We, the survivors of wars and empires, must use this truth to foster a more honest outcome, one built on understanding."
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Episode 4 | Part One | Heist
New
The battle against the droid armies had stilled due in part to poor visibility, as Cody lowered his macrobinoculars. "Understanding what, Ms. Wren?" Cody sought.
"To be more cunning than would be interlopers. That takes training and a good head on one's shoulders." She presented the helmet back to him, the aurebesh for 'Vigilance' written on its foreplate.
Cody, his eyes reflecting a tired but tentative resolve, nodded slightly. "Well," he tried, placing the helmet back on and checking the charge of his blaster rifle. "The past cannot be undone, but the future, well, that is yours to shape, Ms. Wren," he declared. "And that future, is what I'll be fighting for." He saluted. Those in his unit, present to their exchange, shook of their own stupor, and joined in the salute.
---
At last rested enough to amble about, Lia left the medical unit aboard the Vermillion Quillon, assured the action was done unsupervised by the staff, many of them, including the Admiral, now under some kind of thrall. At least, they seemed a bit incapacitated themselves.
She half-stumbled into her assigned quarters aboard the vessel, the effects of the evening's revelry long forgotten. It was Sithspawn medicines and her own adrenaline now coursing in her veins. As she folded more than sat into the narrow bunk, her mind drifted into a fitful slumber.
Her dreams, vivid, though far removed from the familiar corridors of the stolen Imperial vessel. Instead, some wild tundra, slowly thawing, snow receding to produce landscapes and happy roaming mammal life.
There, amidst the tall grasses and ancient ruins, she saw Thrawn!
Though, he was not the calculating Grand Admiral that members of the crew were accustomed to. Instead, he appeared just a bit out of character and thoroughly out of place, neither his winner-take-all Imperial or slightly rambunctious Ascendancy masks in play.
She studied him a bit harder. His hair and his uniform...unkempt! And what's this? A Loth-cat sitting on his shoulder and a group of non-combatants following in his wake. He was humming a capricious melody, fully engrossed in what seemed to be a mere fondness for this change.
Thereupon flitted the Nightsister matriarchs whose entry aboard their vessel she all but missed, their spectral forms were hovering above the plains, watching Thrawn with a mix of disdain and amusement.
"We must avoid him," one whispered morbidly, her voice like the rustling of dry leaves. "His improprieties are a stain upon our plans."
"What about this lot?" asked another, indicating Thrawn's groupies.
Thrawn, oblivious to their presence, continued to prance about, offering the Loth-cat a piece of dried fruit.
Meanwhile, in the distance, a younger individual stood atop a ridge, his eyes sharp and focused. He commanded a formidable force, his strategies precise and unyielding. With a wave of his hand, he directed his own set of troops—an eclectic mix of rebels and vagabonds—throwing them against Thrawn's sullen, now turned zombified brigades.
That was that, then, as wave upon wave of Thrawn's feeble resistance of hapless undead soldiers, once a testament to the ideals of civilian pasttime, now stupefied and faltering under Ezra's masterful tactics.
Lia's lids parted, the afterimage of a surreal battle frozen like a malfunctioning holorecord. Never had she expected to see Thrawn's eccentricities play out so, but so they did.
The Nightsisters' call, she ventured, was issuing from an undisclosed origin, as none of it resembled the tightness or sophistication with which the coven on board so operatedl, the one that was now piecing together how to operate this recommissioned Interdictor-class.
No, this was a cacophony of urgency and for those not versed in the magick arts, outright consternation inducing.
Her eyes widened. There, standing in the room, blaster drawn, was the Admiral. He indicated for her to keep quiet, as he paused to listen to the foot traffic outside her unit. "Stay here for now. Do you have something with which to defend yourself?"
"Conventional weapons are no use against the Nightsisters," she reminded him.
"Well, I guess we got suckered," the Admiral admitted, sighing. He holstered his weapon and bristled a bit. "We are ill suited to contend with this, but I'm sure one of us will think of something."
"Oh, don't you know it," the Chiss official quipped, her eyes glowing.
For her informant among the Dathomiri was already underway.
---
In an office overlooking the auxiliary hangar allotments, a Lothal security official slammed a datacard on a conference desk, nearly dislodging his cup of caf. "They want to land here? It's an outright inferno!" Apparently, the Jocasta's emergency landing was inducing a bit of a bottleneck of New Republic starfighters returning from the same overall engagement, pilots already rebuffed from the capital due to festival traffic and at this rate content with the pyrotechnics.
The hangar was becoming a bit of a madhouse replete with a whole light cruiser's complement of wounded being seen to by first responders. The official shook his head, flumping down in a seat.
---
Sabine, back from meditation and realizing she had started crying, jumped at some voices in the hangar filtering through the old light freighter's paneling. She hopped to, sizing up the situation. "Kanan?"
Ahsoka rose as well, leaving the meditative circle and placing a comforting hand on Sabine's shoulder. "That would be nice, wouldn't it? I think you should go check on them."
Sabine left the Twilight, hurrying down the ramp. To almost bump into Merrin helping Lt Cmdr Faro lower herself onto a cot in the hangar space turned triage. Sabine went to help, but Merrin shook her head. "My sister, she is still aboard!" Merrin grated. The urgency in Merrin's voice was piercing; that was clear to all around.
Sabine pivoted, glancing at the state the Jocasta light cruiser was in. It was a stark contrast to the serenity of the meditation that had preceded it.
"I think she stayed behind to get everyone else safely off first," Faro said hoarsely. "What a trooper."
Sabine's heart raced as she navigated through the fire suppression screens and into the chaos of the ship's intact corridors, rescuers looking at her like she was nuts. But she had her armor. All that was left was to set aside her concerns about the Sith, about the World Between Worlds, and get right to it.
The urgency in Merrin's voice was piercing; she was acutely aware of the danger. The Jocasta light cruiser, a significant investment for Lothal, tilted and groaned. The whole superstructure was in some sort of peril.
Finally, she located her. Merrin's kin, the one Hera had been investigating willy nilly. Her willingness to risk everything for others. It was a defining moment, poised in this crucible of their esteemed yet fragile efforts to hold back the encroaching darkness.
"Leera Vess?" Sabine asked, her helmet speakers chirping as the built-in electronics tried to compensate for the din of systems failing.
"I said everybody ashore that's going--" but with that, Leera finally collapsed, some of her wounds having reopened in all the exertion.
Sighing, Sabine stooped, scooping her up with some effort. "Give me a break."
---
"There, that oughta do it," Calrissian affirmed, multi-tasking with the control dongles in one hand, a readout of the Corvus making final preparations for departure in the other.
Nearby, Suurgav and Antilles admitted to losing their bet with as much professionalism as would be expected that rotation.
"What a whack job," Iden remarked, striding over to see what was hogging the ship's powerplant.
"That, madame, is a bonafide Viper," Calrissian began.
"Vulture. It's a Vulture-class, old Clone Wars tech," Wedge offered.
Iden, folding her arms and exchanging some wordless tidbits with the Duros, withdrew further scrutiny, simply giving a slight 'hmm'.
---
The interior of the Interdictor-class ship was apparently none too removed from the newer, spiffier and yet taken out of action Aiwha-class sitting in flames in a New Republic auxiliary hangar bay on Lothal.
Alarms blared, as stormtroopers scrambled to respond to the unexpected backstabbing. Jerserra, a formidable Nightsister turned Inquisitor for a time, moved through the corridors ahead of her helper droids, debating whether to lace their position with some choice magick. Instead, she switched to her her red double-bladed lightsaber, cutting aside friend and foe alike, anyone who stood in her way.
"Aha!" At last, in one of the Interdictor's diminutive hangars, there was a terminal she could hack.
With swift movements, she eliminated the remaining loyalists surprised at the sight of her emerging through the retracting bulkhead, ensuring no one could contest her advancement to the control interface. She got into the hangar mainframe and downloaded essential data, at least the kind her droids could decipher, the kind to guide her next move. Her orders were to go as far as to initiate the ship-wide self-destruct sequence. Which meant retracing her steps back to the bridge.
Not necessarily back to her sponsor from the Chiss Ascendancy, if she was still aboard. Bugger if it was Morgan Elsbeth. She thought it over, long and hard, as more and more stormtroopers packed and went limp on the extended blade setting of her lightsaber. "No, I think I'll settle for the consolation prize."
She glanced up, satiated at the glorious presence of a wholly intact Seinar Fleet Systems bomber. Was this a gift from the remnants, intended for the coven receiving the whole package? No question about it. Beaming, she thumbed the terminal to disengage the safety locks. "Come to mama!"
But then, waltzing over to it, she paused. "Really, in this day and age, still no hyperdrive?" Resting her head on the barely airtight transparisteel filling a circular cutout in the craft at about head level, she fogged the material with a string of swear words, until finally remembering to deactivate her lightsaber before it tripped hangar defensive protocol, much like the corridors she had left behind.
The troopers so disemboweled collapsed in a heap. She glanced down, aghast. One of them had a control key, the kind that could lower practically every escape craft lurking in the overhangs. She could just ride a piece of deck plating with the Force. But that sounded like more effort than it was worth.
---
"Marvelous!" Jerserra, having borrowed a diminutive, emergency hyperdrive from a far less suitable short-range hopper kept aboard, stood back to appreciate her work. Her eyes were bright, deliberating, already calculating what the droids alone could not. She almost overlooked the Chiss taking aim from tentative cover at a fellow Nightsister emerging from the shadows on the opposite end of the hangar.
Her blade, as if acting on its own accord, boomeranged out and activated, deflecting the bolt at the last possible microsecond.
Well, of course that idiot tried firing another round. Jerserra grunted, retrieving her lightsaber.
Morgan, joining in from a lift, turned to isolate the source of the discharged bolts. "Give it up! I know you're there."
"Impressive," decried Thal'ia'vren, putting her blaster away at once and rising stoically.
"Surprised, to think that's all the Nardithi sisters wanted out of you--!!" Elsbeth crooned, sending her own security detail to intercept the Chiss, while approaching Jerserra, seemingly unguarded.
"Hey, just so you and everybody on the planet knows, I have no quarrel with you, Morgan," Jerserra spat, but dialed down the lightsaber to single blade function all the same, turning to assess.
Then, both paused, as the ship drives fired up as if by mistake.
"There was no instruction to move," Elsbeth uttered, hopping free of Jerserra's tentative saber strike. "Hmph! Rain check, my dear." She thumbed her comlink, smirking as the Chiss wrestled with her two remaining guard droids, before at last complying and receiving handcuffs.
"You're just going to let me off like that?" Jerserra sought, looking about suspiciously. The other Nightsister in their midst seemed just as unsure about that.
"You caught me at a bad time. I'll ask that you make it up to me later," Elsbeth said with a huff.
Wrestling with her choice of words, Jerserra thumbed her lightsaber to standby and clambered up into the cockpit of the now hyperdrive-equipped TIE Bomber, her droid companions already waiting patiently within. "Fine, it's not like I have any further business aboard. Am I cleared to launch?"
"By all means," Elsbeth intoned, smiling and taking Thal'ia'vren back into the inner holds of the ship.
"Well, best to look the part, I guess?" Jerserra thought to herself, settling into the flight seat, her mind centering on the ancient language of the Nightsisters, her hands newly glowing with dark magick. The cockpit, then the whole serviceable frame of the bomber, give off an eerie light as she channeled her power into the ship. But it was not enough.
The other Nightsister, lingering, stepped forward and patted the side of the hull. It began levitating with their combined magick arts.
"Now, we can go," Jerserra affirmed, grinning.
The TIE bomber launched from the hangar, speeding away from the capital ship and soon, as she double checked the readouts, any semblance of gravity well, courtesy of her would-be captors showing restraint. The craft auto-aligned, the stars bending around her new prized possession as she secreted away.
---
Lieutenant Commander Karyn Faro watched over Leera Vess in her brief recovery after the frightful exchange in orbit over Lothal. Now safely removed to a fully functioning hospital, Leera's particular unit was, for that moment, still devoid of other visitors, much less the actual support staff assigned. They appeared to all be preoccupied with the Jocasta's hundreds of other crewmembers.
Some of the injuries filtering through the halls as staff rushed about? It all sounded pretty severe.
"Well, look who it is," Vess said coarsely, trying to put on a cheery expression.
"Easy does it, Nightsister Vess. You were quite the hero back there," Faro intoned, smiling appreciably.
Leera sat up, reflecting on her brief command of the Jocasta light cruiser. "Well, that may be so. I'm more concerned how first command seems to just take the title."
"Hmm?"
"A very short tenure in command of a company vessel. We were up there for perhaps a standard hour?" Leera ventured.
"Mm, something to that effect, sir," Faro quipped.
"I think, if you consider the differences between the local calendar and Coruscant-centric, my command was even shorter."
"To be more cunning than would be interlopers. That takes training and a good head on one's shoulders." She presented the helmet back to him, the aurebesh for 'Vigilance' written on its foreplate.
Cody, his eyes reflecting a tired but tentative resolve, nodded slightly. "Well," he tried, placing the helmet back on and checking the charge of his blaster rifle. "The past cannot be undone, but the future, well, that is yours to shape, Ms. Wren," he declared. "And that future, is what I'll be fighting for." He saluted. Those in his unit, present to their exchange, shook of their own stupor, and joined in the salute.
---
At last rested enough to amble about, Lia left the medical unit aboard the Vermillion Quillon, assured the action was done unsupervised by the staff, many of them, including the Admiral, now under some kind of thrall. At least, they seemed a bit incapacitated themselves.
She half-stumbled into her assigned quarters aboard the vessel, the effects of the evening's revelry long forgotten. It was Sithspawn medicines and her own adrenaline now coursing in her veins. As she folded more than sat into the narrow bunk, her mind drifted into a fitful slumber.
Her dreams, vivid, though far removed from the familiar corridors of the stolen Imperial vessel. Instead, some wild tundra, slowly thawing, snow receding to produce landscapes and happy roaming mammal life.
There, amidst the tall grasses and ancient ruins, she saw Thrawn!
Though, he was not the calculating Grand Admiral that members of the crew were accustomed to. Instead, he appeared just a bit out of character and thoroughly out of place, neither his winner-take-all Imperial or slightly rambunctious Ascendancy masks in play.
She studied him a bit harder. His hair and his uniform...unkempt! And what's this? A Loth-cat sitting on his shoulder and a group of non-combatants following in his wake. He was humming a capricious melody, fully engrossed in what seemed to be a mere fondness for this change.
Thereupon flitted the Nightsister matriarchs whose entry aboard their vessel she all but missed, their spectral forms were hovering above the plains, watching Thrawn with a mix of disdain and amusement.
"We must avoid him," one whispered morbidly, her voice like the rustling of dry leaves. "His improprieties are a stain upon our plans."
"What about this lot?" asked another, indicating Thrawn's groupies.
Thrawn, oblivious to their presence, continued to prance about, offering the Loth-cat a piece of dried fruit.
Meanwhile, in the distance, a younger individual stood atop a ridge, his eyes sharp and focused. He commanded a formidable force, his strategies precise and unyielding. With a wave of his hand, he directed his own set of troops—an eclectic mix of rebels and vagabonds—throwing them against Thrawn's sullen, now turned zombified brigades.
That was that, then, as wave upon wave of Thrawn's feeble resistance of hapless undead soldiers, once a testament to the ideals of civilian pasttime, now stupefied and faltering under Ezra's masterful tactics.
Lia's lids parted, the afterimage of a surreal battle frozen like a malfunctioning holorecord. Never had she expected to see Thrawn's eccentricities play out so, but so they did.
The Nightsisters' call, she ventured, was issuing from an undisclosed origin, as none of it resembled the tightness or sophistication with which the coven on board so operatedl, the one that was now piecing together how to operate this recommissioned Interdictor-class.
No, this was a cacophony of urgency and for those not versed in the magick arts, outright consternation inducing.
Her eyes widened. There, standing in the room, blaster drawn, was the Admiral. He indicated for her to keep quiet, as he paused to listen to the foot traffic outside her unit. "Stay here for now. Do you have something with which to defend yourself?"
"Conventional weapons are no use against the Nightsisters," she reminded him.
"Well, I guess we got suckered," the Admiral admitted, sighing. He holstered his weapon and bristled a bit. "We are ill suited to contend with this, but I'm sure one of us will think of something."
"Oh, don't you know it," the Chiss official quipped, her eyes glowing.
For her informant among the Dathomiri was already underway.
---
In an office overlooking the auxiliary hangar allotments, a Lothal security official slammed a datacard on a conference desk, nearly dislodging his cup of caf. "They want to land here? It's an outright inferno!" Apparently, the Jocasta's emergency landing was inducing a bit of a bottleneck of New Republic starfighters returning from the same overall engagement, pilots already rebuffed from the capital due to festival traffic and at this rate content with the pyrotechnics.
The hangar was becoming a bit of a madhouse replete with a whole light cruiser's complement of wounded being seen to by first responders. The official shook his head, flumping down in a seat.
---
Sabine, back from meditation and realizing she had started crying, jumped at some voices in the hangar filtering through the old light freighter's paneling. She hopped to, sizing up the situation. "Kanan?"
Ahsoka rose as well, leaving the meditative circle and placing a comforting hand on Sabine's shoulder. "That would be nice, wouldn't it? I think you should go check on them."
Sabine left the Twilight, hurrying down the ramp. To almost bump into Merrin helping Lt Cmdr Faro lower herself onto a cot in the hangar space turned triage. Sabine went to help, but Merrin shook her head. "My sister, she is still aboard!" Merrin grated. The urgency in Merrin's voice was piercing; that was clear to all around.
Sabine pivoted, glancing at the state the Jocasta light cruiser was in. It was a stark contrast to the serenity of the meditation that had preceded it.
"I think she stayed behind to get everyone else safely off first," Faro said hoarsely. "What a trooper."
Sabine's heart raced as she navigated through the fire suppression screens and into the chaos of the ship's intact corridors, rescuers looking at her like she was nuts. But she had her armor. All that was left was to set aside her concerns about the Sith, about the World Between Worlds, and get right to it.
The urgency in Merrin's voice was piercing; she was acutely aware of the danger. The Jocasta light cruiser, a significant investment for Lothal, tilted and groaned. The whole superstructure was in some sort of peril.
Finally, she located her. Merrin's kin, the one Hera had been investigating willy nilly. Her willingness to risk everything for others. It was a defining moment, poised in this crucible of their esteemed yet fragile efforts to hold back the encroaching darkness.
"Leera Vess?" Sabine asked, her helmet speakers chirping as the built-in electronics tried to compensate for the din of systems failing.
"I said everybody ashore that's going--" but with that, Leera finally collapsed, some of her wounds having reopened in all the exertion.
Sighing, Sabine stooped, scooping her up with some effort. "Give me a break."
---
"There, that oughta do it," Calrissian affirmed, multi-tasking with the control dongles in one hand, a readout of the Corvus making final preparations for departure in the other.
Nearby, Suurgav and Antilles admitted to losing their bet with as much professionalism as would be expected that rotation.
"What a whack job," Iden remarked, striding over to see what was hogging the ship's powerplant.
"That, madame, is a bonafide Viper," Calrissian began.
"Vulture. It's a Vulture-class, old Clone Wars tech," Wedge offered.
Iden, folding her arms and exchanging some wordless tidbits with the Duros, withdrew further scrutiny, simply giving a slight 'hmm'.
---
The interior of the Interdictor-class ship was apparently none too removed from the newer, spiffier and yet taken out of action Aiwha-class sitting in flames in a New Republic auxiliary hangar bay on Lothal.
Alarms blared, as stormtroopers scrambled to respond to the unexpected backstabbing. Jerserra, a formidable Nightsister turned Inquisitor for a time, moved through the corridors ahead of her helper droids, debating whether to lace their position with some choice magick. Instead, she switched to her her red double-bladed lightsaber, cutting aside friend and foe alike, anyone who stood in her way.
"Aha!" At last, in one of the Interdictor's diminutive hangars, there was a terminal she could hack.
With swift movements, she eliminated the remaining loyalists surprised at the sight of her emerging through the retracting bulkhead, ensuring no one could contest her advancement to the control interface. She got into the hangar mainframe and downloaded essential data, at least the kind her droids could decipher, the kind to guide her next move. Her orders were to go as far as to initiate the ship-wide self-destruct sequence. Which meant retracing her steps back to the bridge.
Not necessarily back to her sponsor from the Chiss Ascendancy, if she was still aboard. Bugger if it was Morgan Elsbeth. She thought it over, long and hard, as more and more stormtroopers packed and went limp on the extended blade setting of her lightsaber. "No, I think I'll settle for the consolation prize."
She glanced up, satiated at the glorious presence of a wholly intact Seinar Fleet Systems bomber. Was this a gift from the remnants, intended for the coven receiving the whole package? No question about it. Beaming, she thumbed the terminal to disengage the safety locks. "Come to mama!"
But then, waltzing over to it, she paused. "Really, in this day and age, still no hyperdrive?" Resting her head on the barely airtight transparisteel filling a circular cutout in the craft at about head level, she fogged the material with a string of swear words, until finally remembering to deactivate her lightsaber before it tripped hangar defensive protocol, much like the corridors she had left behind.
The troopers so disemboweled collapsed in a heap. She glanced down, aghast. One of them had a control key, the kind that could lower practically every escape craft lurking in the overhangs. She could just ride a piece of deck plating with the Force. But that sounded like more effort than it was worth.
---
"Marvelous!" Jerserra, having borrowed a diminutive, emergency hyperdrive from a far less suitable short-range hopper kept aboard, stood back to appreciate her work. Her eyes were bright, deliberating, already calculating what the droids alone could not. She almost overlooked the Chiss taking aim from tentative cover at a fellow Nightsister emerging from the shadows on the opposite end of the hangar.
Her blade, as if acting on its own accord, boomeranged out and activated, deflecting the bolt at the last possible microsecond.
Well, of course that idiot tried firing another round. Jerserra grunted, retrieving her lightsaber.
Morgan, joining in from a lift, turned to isolate the source of the discharged bolts. "Give it up! I know you're there."
"Impressive," decried Thal'ia'vren, putting her blaster away at once and rising stoically.
"Surprised, to think that's all the Nardithi sisters wanted out of you--!!" Elsbeth crooned, sending her own security detail to intercept the Chiss, while approaching Jerserra, seemingly unguarded.
"Hey, just so you and everybody on the planet knows, I have no quarrel with you, Morgan," Jerserra spat, but dialed down the lightsaber to single blade function all the same, turning to assess.
Then, both paused, as the ship drives fired up as if by mistake.
"There was no instruction to move," Elsbeth uttered, hopping free of Jerserra's tentative saber strike. "Hmph! Rain check, my dear." She thumbed her comlink, smirking as the Chiss wrestled with her two remaining guard droids, before at last complying and receiving handcuffs.
"You're just going to let me off like that?" Jerserra sought, looking about suspiciously. The other Nightsister in their midst seemed just as unsure about that.
"You caught me at a bad time. I'll ask that you make it up to me later," Elsbeth said with a huff.
Wrestling with her choice of words, Jerserra thumbed her lightsaber to standby and clambered up into the cockpit of the now hyperdrive-equipped TIE Bomber, her droid companions already waiting patiently within. "Fine, it's not like I have any further business aboard. Am I cleared to launch?"
"By all means," Elsbeth intoned, smiling and taking Thal'ia'vren back into the inner holds of the ship.
"Well, best to look the part, I guess?" Jerserra thought to herself, settling into the flight seat, her mind centering on the ancient language of the Nightsisters, her hands newly glowing with dark magick. The cockpit, then the whole serviceable frame of the bomber, give off an eerie light as she channeled her power into the ship. But it was not enough.
The other Nightsister, lingering, stepped forward and patted the side of the hull. It began levitating with their combined magick arts.
"Now, we can go," Jerserra affirmed, grinning.
The TIE bomber launched from the hangar, speeding away from the capital ship and soon, as she double checked the readouts, any semblance of gravity well, courtesy of her would-be captors showing restraint. The craft auto-aligned, the stars bending around her new prized possession as she secreted away.
---
Lieutenant Commander Karyn Faro watched over Leera Vess in her brief recovery after the frightful exchange in orbit over Lothal. Now safely removed to a fully functioning hospital, Leera's particular unit was, for that moment, still devoid of other visitors, much less the actual support staff assigned. They appeared to all be preoccupied with the Jocasta's hundreds of other crewmembers.
Some of the injuries filtering through the halls as staff rushed about? It all sounded pretty severe.
"Well, look who it is," Vess said coarsely, trying to put on a cheery expression.
"Easy does it, Nightsister Vess. You were quite the hero back there," Faro intoned, smiling appreciably.
Leera sat up, reflecting on her brief command of the Jocasta light cruiser. "Well, that may be so. I'm more concerned how first command seems to just take the title."
"Hmm?"
"A very short tenure in command of a company vessel. We were up there for perhaps a standard hour?" Leera ventured.
"Mm, something to that effect, sir," Faro quipped.
"I think, if you consider the differences between the local calendar and Coruscant-centric, my command was even shorter."
🐱🏍
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Episode 4 | Part Two | Omnicron
New
After a beat, Faro glanced over from a bank of scanners that all reassured the Lieutenant Colonel just how correlatively well Leera was doing physiologically. Though, she was certainly in need of a pick-me-up at this juncture. "Now, that is no way to think of things, Commander Vess. At any rate, your mother has asked that you check in with her before long. There is no doctor or droid present to give a verdict; still, you appear to be fit to return to command, don't you think?"
"Oh, let me see if these bandages will even let me salute your Lieutenant Commanders."
"Pardon?" Karyn sought, pulling back a bit as Leera's attempted salute melted into merely prodding at the space she was occupying.
"These Sithspit meds they gave me."
---
A flattened hologram flickered to life, revealing the familiar face of Agent Kallus on a threadbare, barely discernible feed from the Unknown Regions. His expression was serious, yet there was still a hint of empathy in his eyes.
Hera Syndulla, seated in the cockpit of the Ghost as it held a practically geostationary parking spot well above the planet Lothal, leaned forward, her face illuminated by the soft glow of the Holonet transmission as the ship's systems complied with her request to improve the signal.
Meanwhile, in one of the guest suites built into the medical center, Leera sighed, speaking in full confidence to her mother's helper droid, her shoulders slumping. "I know what underestimating a holocron's power does. But BD-10 won't lead us into the same trap, it hasn't so far at least."
Vizago's hologram softened slightly. "You must remain vigilant through all of this, for your mother's sake."
"Shush now, there's Hera."
Hera waved merrily through the feed at BD-10. "Greetings, Kallus. I see Orellios was able to get a hold of you. Now, I need your help. That is, I'd like to understand more about Leera's time at the Lothal Imperial Academy. You were assigned to monitor her, correct?"
Leera felt herself almost nodding off, still working off the hospital-supplied medication. She stilled these concerns, her resolve was hardening. Willing herself with the Force to stay upright, she called over to the Kallus impersonator. "Speak as you would, no exceptions. She is trustworthy."
"I know." BD-10 sent in a coded transmission of beeps and lights as Kallus's hologram persisted in the convincing ruse, choosing to state: "Leera was… up to something. I don't know whether it was the usual Imperial presence on Lothal, or the pressure to complete her studies. You know, the Academy's commencement ceremonies were right before 7th Fleet was beaten. She nearly got caught in that."
Hera sat upright, accepting a mug of caf from Chopper somewhat out of frame. "Really? I had no idea."
Vizago leaned in closer, something about the next leg of the operation did not sit right. "My lady. We need to lay low for now, reassess our strategy, and find a way to neutralize any Sith influences while we still have a full house."
Leera winced. "Indeed, to think anyone foolish enough to afford another detour like that."
Vizago, assuming a pensive poise, murmured afresh: "There are many more variables to consider, while we entertain this downtime. Whether the Interdictor's systems saw through our cloak, plotted the outbound flight of the TIE/sa. And what about the real Jerserra's leanings with the Sith? If they catch wind of Operation Omnicron, they'll come for us in full force."
"Let us leave that matter to Lothal's defenders. For which, if memory serves, I am due back soon."
Kallus's hologram was nodding, readying to say more while not breaking eye contact with Hera through the feed. "Thrawn… made it difficult for her. She struggled to adapt to his rigid demands, on top of the constant indoctrination from others present, such as Arihnda. Her Dathomiri heritage only complicated this."
Hera nodded, absorbing the information. "So, you're saying she was resistant to these attempts?"
Kallus's hologram shook its head but spread its arms wide as it explained. "Not necessarily, not openly, Hera. I think Leera was being cautious." Its eyes tracked to the side as it considered. "No, she had some talent, bordering on inquisitorial. She was fully aware of the consequences, and she still went for it."
Leera's eyes narrowed. "We'll have to be inventive. A wholly intact Sith holocron is powerful and highly dangerous. We must start small."
"Might I suggest we find a way to get Mother Jerserra to show? Maybe more instances of these sightings will force her to act," begat the holo fields resembling Vizago.
Both holograms flickered, their forms wavering slightly. Vizago and Kallus's likenesses seemed to consider the situation at length, their expressions a mix of concern and determination.
"Alright, Leera. We'll follow your lead. But be careful. The stakes are higher than ever," said one.
"Agreed," signaled the other, before addressing Hera's latest remarks with a firm nod. "You are correct, Hera. We'll need as much cunning and strength as we can muster to see through all the pesky indoctrination she sustained."
Leera coughed midst a half-hearted chortle, feeling BD-10's brazenness would rub off on her before long. She was aware that the journey ahead would be arduous, filled with obstacles she felt only somewhat prepared to overcome. Yet, she was starting to appreciate these deviations, steering with her duo of droid aides, reminiscent of Jerserra's own adventures in times past.
Only, no shards of a holocron guided her. Thus far, at least.
Within the feed, Hera was sighing, exuding a mix of trepidation and wild ambition as she leaned forward. "You know what, I think we stand a good chance of supporting her cause, Kallus! She's officially one of us now."
Kallus's hologram lowered its gaze, and there was a long pause before it inquired, "Is Jacen on board with you?"
"No, the decision is mine, in good faith and final. Now then, you need to get back over here to Lothal. I'm told that Leera never finished her commencement ceremony, thanks to us."
"Oof, I bet she will want a reenactment of one, although Domes are a bit hard to come by these days."
"Hah! Good chatting with you, Kallus. Bye for now."
As the holograms faded, Leera sat back in her chair, the weight of the deactivated BD-10 pressing into her lap. There were still some alterations to be had, but it would require some of Faro's fortes.
---
Sabine returned from her attending to matters around Tarkintown. Taking the Phantom up, she joined Hera, who for some reason refused to land for the better part of that rotation. What was she dealing with?
Entering the forward section, Sabine found Hera sitting in thoughtful silence, Chopper powered down. But then, tired and groggily, Hera turned to acknowledge Sabine as she placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Just the person I need to see right now."
"Shoot."
"I think you might be the best person suited to help Leera through whatever she's got. You're closer to her age, and you've both been through the Imperial Academy. You understand what she's been through."
Sabine nodded, blowing out a steadying breath and finding the fog escaping, suggesting the ship systems were in low-power mode. Seriously, what was General Syndulla's deal this hour?
Well, she would have to ask later. "Sure thing, Hera. She like anyone deserves a chance to find her place and make new friends."
"Oh, that's what I forgot to ask him about."
"Hmm?"
"That chat we had with Zeb the other rotation," Hera explained, rubbing at her cheekbones a bit.
Sabine, waiting patiently for her to continue, all the while wondered if her request to borrow Chopper would have to wait a bit.
"Zeb wasn't kidding. I just confirmed it with Kallus before you arrived. Leera was often landing herself in a heap of trouble, and it all started when one of Thrawn's understudies... you know, in case he or the Chimaera itself were taken out of action?"
"I guess?"
"Well, she and a handful of other Lothal Academy grads were originally meant to be the new blood for 7th Fleet. But, owing to Imperial High Command always feigning respectability, with that underlying threat of force. Imperial subjects that served thought they were safe, thought they were something special. At least right up until we started taking Lothal back and that Aldhani raid, then everyone was pointing fingers at everyone else."
"Yeah, I definitely saw a lot of that."
"Well, this all played out except on Thrawn's desk, apparently. By the time he oversaw Academy training here, he made it pretty plain to the cadets, they were to be his unquestioningly loyal little squirelings under his boot for life. Any semblance of tender-handed would be seen by his Emperor as weakness."
"Okay, so there was some bad blood between them? Almost like we didn't even have to blow up the Dome."
"Sabine..."
"Too soon? Okay, I get it, the remnant like everybody else is in our care. Look, we're still a few hours to the next leg of the festival happenings. I think sky traffic is pretty stable right now. I'll jetpack on down."
"No, take Chopper, and take the Phantom. I have some other business to attend to for now."
"Yeah, good. I, umm, will go make sure she is still about. Actually, I think Merrin would totally be on board and might lend some assistance here," Sabine argued, affixing her helmet with some hesitation to add, "Uhh, I'm kind of in the dark though, not really knowing how the Dathomiri usually operate."
Hera, wiping away an impromptu sniffle with a shirt sleeve, nodded knowingly. "Well, I'm pretty sure that's what Ahsoka has been adding to your training lately?"
Sabine grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, she somehow knows what I'm up to before I even do sometimes."
Hera smiled, placing her hand over Wren's and squeezing it. "Well, know that from the bottom of my heart, I thank you, Sabine. I cannot do this without you."
---
Leera's hands trembled slightly as she finished resituating some of the wires in the compact helper droid. BD-10 whirred to life, its dark grey and red exterior gleaming ominously. As the changes processed in its core, it was particularly reserved about greeting members of the room.
As Leera was back in the med ward for a follow-up examination, Lt. Cmdr Faro snoozing in a swivel seat nearby after having helped at length to make the adjustments to the droid, so much the better.
Then, the hologram of Thrawn flickered into existence, his calm, calculating gaze fixed on her.
Leera beamed at him, out of habit. "Play back your previous communique, BD-10."
There was static, and then: "... if you are seeing this, it means you have unlocked the key to Operation Omnicron. This operation is crucial for the future stability of Lothal and the Empire."
Leera's heart pounded. She had always known Thrawn was a master strategist, but merely regarding his holographic likeness, hearing his voice again, profound was the weight of such an undertaking.
Though, what was the mission about?
"Operation Omnicron requires precise execution. You must ensure that your actions align with local laws and be palatable to the local authorities monitoring your stay. Now, I have a jamming chip inserted into the BD-10. It is quite the umbrella coverage. Whether you choose to use it, is up to you. I trust you know your way around a civilian freighter or the like by now. Some of the--"
"Sorry, Grand Admiral, sir?" Leera murmured tentatively.
Nonetheless, the droid was determined to play its part. "Again, every action must be with due cause, do not cloud your judgment with chance prospects of pilfering like your ancestors would have you do."
"Forgive me, sir, but that is precisely the problem here."
"...speak."
Leera felt a knot tighten in her stomach. She had hoped to find a way to balance her loyalty to Thrawn with her desire to protect her friends, but now it seemed impossible. So, she ventured with a less condescending description of their overall rambunctiousness. "At the time this was recorded, even the illustrious Grand Admiral could not anticipate--"
"Try me."
Leera retreated under the covers of her cot, sweating profusely, until a cooling palm lowered upon her forehead.
"Hmm, you don't have a fever at least," Faro asserted, rising and helping Leera sit up better for a bit.
The hologram continued to wait, while Leera guzzled water, before gingerly detailing the oversights of the operation, each one more mutinous sounding than the last. "Sirs, the situation has changed, dramatically I might add. For every sector once covered under the Imperial banner, there are perhaps one recommissioned assault transport. Gone are the handful of ISDs and scores of light-cruisers to throw at the enemy. Even the architect of the Tarkine doctrine is deceased."
"Hmm. This is cumbersome," the hologram of Thrawn inferred. "Well, before the orderlies return to your unit, let us consider some sound alternatives."
"I've already taken the liberty, sir!" Leera said, clapping her hands together. Seeing both Faro and the imitation Thrawn regarding her quizzically, she indicated the base housing of the BD-10 droid.
It was now Lt. Cmdr Faro's turn to sigh openly as she started carefully and painfully reviewing a copy of Leera's revelations on a wrist gadget. "This is not standard protocol."
The two of them, plus BD-10 tucked under Leera's bacta-linked forearms, walked briskly to the hangar where Jocasta, midst repairs, would at least offer them a better overview than medical monitors could.
"I know it sounds rash. But, like Thrawn was getting at: 'Remember, Leera, the future of Lothal depends on your ability to balance--'"
"Hope with discipline. I know, Nightsister Vess. But, please do not let personal biases interfere with your mission."
"Hmm?"
"You fancy attention from him. Serving aboard the Chimaera, there were many long lungfuls from the bridge crew. It was a madhouse."
Leera, pausing for the ramp of the Jocasta to finish extending, fought back a lozenge-dislodging chuckle. Though, Faro was right to draw attention to this.
"How is she holding up?" asked a hangar technician to one of the repair droids on the Jocasta's pockmarked dorsal armor plating.
Faro, seeing an opening, murmured an aside: "The ship, or the senator's daughter?"
Leera tried socking her subordinate as hard as decorum, and the bacta coursing through her knuckles, would allow. "Low blow!"
"Oh, let me see if these bandages will even let me salute your Lieutenant Commanders."
"Pardon?" Karyn sought, pulling back a bit as Leera's attempted salute melted into merely prodding at the space she was occupying.
"These Sithspit meds they gave me."
---
A flattened hologram flickered to life, revealing the familiar face of Agent Kallus on a threadbare, barely discernible feed from the Unknown Regions. His expression was serious, yet there was still a hint of empathy in his eyes.
Hera Syndulla, seated in the cockpit of the Ghost as it held a practically geostationary parking spot well above the planet Lothal, leaned forward, her face illuminated by the soft glow of the Holonet transmission as the ship's systems complied with her request to improve the signal.
Meanwhile, in one of the guest suites built into the medical center, Leera sighed, speaking in full confidence to her mother's helper droid, her shoulders slumping. "I know what underestimating a holocron's power does. But BD-10 won't lead us into the same trap, it hasn't so far at least."
Vizago's hologram softened slightly. "You must remain vigilant through all of this, for your mother's sake."
"Shush now, there's Hera."
Hera waved merrily through the feed at BD-10. "Greetings, Kallus. I see Orellios was able to get a hold of you. Now, I need your help. That is, I'd like to understand more about Leera's time at the Lothal Imperial Academy. You were assigned to monitor her, correct?"
Leera felt herself almost nodding off, still working off the hospital-supplied medication. She stilled these concerns, her resolve was hardening. Willing herself with the Force to stay upright, she called over to the Kallus impersonator. "Speak as you would, no exceptions. She is trustworthy."
"I know." BD-10 sent in a coded transmission of beeps and lights as Kallus's hologram persisted in the convincing ruse, choosing to state: "Leera was… up to something. I don't know whether it was the usual Imperial presence on Lothal, or the pressure to complete her studies. You know, the Academy's commencement ceremonies were right before 7th Fleet was beaten. She nearly got caught in that."
Hera sat upright, accepting a mug of caf from Chopper somewhat out of frame. "Really? I had no idea."
Vizago leaned in closer, something about the next leg of the operation did not sit right. "My lady. We need to lay low for now, reassess our strategy, and find a way to neutralize any Sith influences while we still have a full house."
Leera winced. "Indeed, to think anyone foolish enough to afford another detour like that."
Vizago, assuming a pensive poise, murmured afresh: "There are many more variables to consider, while we entertain this downtime. Whether the Interdictor's systems saw through our cloak, plotted the outbound flight of the TIE/sa. And what about the real Jerserra's leanings with the Sith? If they catch wind of Operation Omnicron, they'll come for us in full force."
"Let us leave that matter to Lothal's defenders. For which, if memory serves, I am due back soon."
Kallus's hologram was nodding, readying to say more while not breaking eye contact with Hera through the feed. "Thrawn… made it difficult for her. She struggled to adapt to his rigid demands, on top of the constant indoctrination from others present, such as Arihnda. Her Dathomiri heritage only complicated this."
Hera nodded, absorbing the information. "So, you're saying she was resistant to these attempts?"
Kallus's hologram shook its head but spread its arms wide as it explained. "Not necessarily, not openly, Hera. I think Leera was being cautious." Its eyes tracked to the side as it considered. "No, she had some talent, bordering on inquisitorial. She was fully aware of the consequences, and she still went for it."
Leera's eyes narrowed. "We'll have to be inventive. A wholly intact Sith holocron is powerful and highly dangerous. We must start small."
"Might I suggest we find a way to get Mother Jerserra to show? Maybe more instances of these sightings will force her to act," begat the holo fields resembling Vizago.
Both holograms flickered, their forms wavering slightly. Vizago and Kallus's likenesses seemed to consider the situation at length, their expressions a mix of concern and determination.
"Alright, Leera. We'll follow your lead. But be careful. The stakes are higher than ever," said one.
"Agreed," signaled the other, before addressing Hera's latest remarks with a firm nod. "You are correct, Hera. We'll need as much cunning and strength as we can muster to see through all the pesky indoctrination she sustained."
Leera coughed midst a half-hearted chortle, feeling BD-10's brazenness would rub off on her before long. She was aware that the journey ahead would be arduous, filled with obstacles she felt only somewhat prepared to overcome. Yet, she was starting to appreciate these deviations, steering with her duo of droid aides, reminiscent of Jerserra's own adventures in times past.
Only, no shards of a holocron guided her. Thus far, at least.
Within the feed, Hera was sighing, exuding a mix of trepidation and wild ambition as she leaned forward. "You know what, I think we stand a good chance of supporting her cause, Kallus! She's officially one of us now."
Kallus's hologram lowered its gaze, and there was a long pause before it inquired, "Is Jacen on board with you?"
"No, the decision is mine, in good faith and final. Now then, you need to get back over here to Lothal. I'm told that Leera never finished her commencement ceremony, thanks to us."
"Oof, I bet she will want a reenactment of one, although Domes are a bit hard to come by these days."
"Hah! Good chatting with you, Kallus. Bye for now."
As the holograms faded, Leera sat back in her chair, the weight of the deactivated BD-10 pressing into her lap. There were still some alterations to be had, but it would require some of Faro's fortes.
---
Sabine returned from her attending to matters around Tarkintown. Taking the Phantom up, she joined Hera, who for some reason refused to land for the better part of that rotation. What was she dealing with?
Entering the forward section, Sabine found Hera sitting in thoughtful silence, Chopper powered down. But then, tired and groggily, Hera turned to acknowledge Sabine as she placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Just the person I need to see right now."
"Shoot."
"I think you might be the best person suited to help Leera through whatever she's got. You're closer to her age, and you've both been through the Imperial Academy. You understand what she's been through."
Sabine nodded, blowing out a steadying breath and finding the fog escaping, suggesting the ship systems were in low-power mode. Seriously, what was General Syndulla's deal this hour?
Well, she would have to ask later. "Sure thing, Hera. She like anyone deserves a chance to find her place and make new friends."
"Oh, that's what I forgot to ask him about."
"Hmm?"
"That chat we had with Zeb the other rotation," Hera explained, rubbing at her cheekbones a bit.
Sabine, waiting patiently for her to continue, all the while wondered if her request to borrow Chopper would have to wait a bit.
"Zeb wasn't kidding. I just confirmed it with Kallus before you arrived. Leera was often landing herself in a heap of trouble, and it all started when one of Thrawn's understudies... you know, in case he or the Chimaera itself were taken out of action?"
"I guess?"
"Well, she and a handful of other Lothal Academy grads were originally meant to be the new blood for 7th Fleet. But, owing to Imperial High Command always feigning respectability, with that underlying threat of force. Imperial subjects that served thought they were safe, thought they were something special. At least right up until we started taking Lothal back and that Aldhani raid, then everyone was pointing fingers at everyone else."
"Yeah, I definitely saw a lot of that."
"Well, this all played out except on Thrawn's desk, apparently. By the time he oversaw Academy training here, he made it pretty plain to the cadets, they were to be his unquestioningly loyal little squirelings under his boot for life. Any semblance of tender-handed would be seen by his Emperor as weakness."
"Okay, so there was some bad blood between them? Almost like we didn't even have to blow up the Dome."
"Sabine..."
"Too soon? Okay, I get it, the remnant like everybody else is in our care. Look, we're still a few hours to the next leg of the festival happenings. I think sky traffic is pretty stable right now. I'll jetpack on down."
"No, take Chopper, and take the Phantom. I have some other business to attend to for now."
"Yeah, good. I, umm, will go make sure she is still about. Actually, I think Merrin would totally be on board and might lend some assistance here," Sabine argued, affixing her helmet with some hesitation to add, "Uhh, I'm kind of in the dark though, not really knowing how the Dathomiri usually operate."
Hera, wiping away an impromptu sniffle with a shirt sleeve, nodded knowingly. "Well, I'm pretty sure that's what Ahsoka has been adding to your training lately?"
Sabine grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, she somehow knows what I'm up to before I even do sometimes."
Hera smiled, placing her hand over Wren's and squeezing it. "Well, know that from the bottom of my heart, I thank you, Sabine. I cannot do this without you."
---
Leera's hands trembled slightly as she finished resituating some of the wires in the compact helper droid. BD-10 whirred to life, its dark grey and red exterior gleaming ominously. As the changes processed in its core, it was particularly reserved about greeting members of the room.
As Leera was back in the med ward for a follow-up examination, Lt. Cmdr Faro snoozing in a swivel seat nearby after having helped at length to make the adjustments to the droid, so much the better.
Then, the hologram of Thrawn flickered into existence, his calm, calculating gaze fixed on her.
Leera beamed at him, out of habit. "Play back your previous communique, BD-10."
There was static, and then: "... if you are seeing this, it means you have unlocked the key to Operation Omnicron. This operation is crucial for the future stability of Lothal and the Empire."
Leera's heart pounded. She had always known Thrawn was a master strategist, but merely regarding his holographic likeness, hearing his voice again, profound was the weight of such an undertaking.
Though, what was the mission about?
"Operation Omnicron requires precise execution. You must ensure that your actions align with local laws and be palatable to the local authorities monitoring your stay. Now, I have a jamming chip inserted into the BD-10. It is quite the umbrella coverage. Whether you choose to use it, is up to you. I trust you know your way around a civilian freighter or the like by now. Some of the--"
"Sorry, Grand Admiral, sir?" Leera murmured tentatively.
Nonetheless, the droid was determined to play its part. "Again, every action must be with due cause, do not cloud your judgment with chance prospects of pilfering like your ancestors would have you do."
"Forgive me, sir, but that is precisely the problem here."
"...speak."
Leera felt a knot tighten in her stomach. She had hoped to find a way to balance her loyalty to Thrawn with her desire to protect her friends, but now it seemed impossible. So, she ventured with a less condescending description of their overall rambunctiousness. "At the time this was recorded, even the illustrious Grand Admiral could not anticipate--"
"Try me."
Leera retreated under the covers of her cot, sweating profusely, until a cooling palm lowered upon her forehead.
"Hmm, you don't have a fever at least," Faro asserted, rising and helping Leera sit up better for a bit.
The hologram continued to wait, while Leera guzzled water, before gingerly detailing the oversights of the operation, each one more mutinous sounding than the last. "Sirs, the situation has changed, dramatically I might add. For every sector once covered under the Imperial banner, there are perhaps one recommissioned assault transport. Gone are the handful of ISDs and scores of light-cruisers to throw at the enemy. Even the architect of the Tarkine doctrine is deceased."
"Hmm. This is cumbersome," the hologram of Thrawn inferred. "Well, before the orderlies return to your unit, let us consider some sound alternatives."
"I've already taken the liberty, sir!" Leera said, clapping her hands together. Seeing both Faro and the imitation Thrawn regarding her quizzically, she indicated the base housing of the BD-10 droid.
It was now Lt. Cmdr Faro's turn to sigh openly as she started carefully and painfully reviewing a copy of Leera's revelations on a wrist gadget. "This is not standard protocol."
The two of them, plus BD-10 tucked under Leera's bacta-linked forearms, walked briskly to the hangar where Jocasta, midst repairs, would at least offer them a better overview than medical monitors could.
"I know it sounds rash. But, like Thrawn was getting at: 'Remember, Leera, the future of Lothal depends on your ability to balance--'"
"Hope with discipline. I know, Nightsister Vess. But, please do not let personal biases interfere with your mission."
"Hmm?"
"You fancy attention from him. Serving aboard the Chimaera, there were many long lungfuls from the bridge crew. It was a madhouse."
Leera, pausing for the ramp of the Jocasta to finish extending, fought back a lozenge-dislodging chuckle. Though, Faro was right to draw attention to this.
"How is she holding up?" asked a hangar technician to one of the repair droids on the Jocasta's pockmarked dorsal armor plating.
Faro, seeing an opening, murmured an aside: "The ship, or the senator's daughter?"
Leera tried socking her subordinate as hard as decorum, and the bacta coursing through her knuckles, would allow. "Low blow!"
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Episode 5 | Part One | Inferno
New
"Have they still not allowed you folks to go home?" Sabine demanded, sticking her head out of a Chopper-filled Phantom, the both of them feigning outrage.
With a knowing look, Lt. Cmdr Faro bid adieu to her superior, but not before returning the punch.
---
The sun was beginning to set, as the crew of the Corvus finally gained clearance to land and disembark with the rebuilt Vulture-class droid.
The owner of the antique was not in, according to a door guard at Captain Elara Vess' personal estate. However, her daughter, concealing signs of recent wounds and medical treatment beneath a heavy Lothalian-patterned smock, consented to the receipt of it.
She extended the opportunity for the Corvus crew to avoid the chaos of the starports mid-festival and to instead join in some relaxation at the estate's private waterpark, one of the more dominant features in the area. That she was stuck on the ground not from injuries in the field of battle, but as the holo-emitters on her pair of droids had drained their power cells, was a whole other matter.
"Leera," she clarified, as the chain code was a bit hard to read in the sharp lighting of the main estate access. This forced the Corvus detail to amble along the gravel-strewn limits of a lazy, winding river that cut into the property. Until the Vulture-class beeped at everyone.
Vess paused, whirling about to regard the old droid with an inquisitive eye blink. "The droid feels it can get us there quicker on the water."
"Valor," the droid announced through its speakers. "That is my callsign."
"Okay then, Valor, let's see what you got."
"Oh, are we going for a swim?" Versio thought to ask, glancing at her Republic uniform.
Valor's sensors flickered in acknowledgment. "Activating flotation mode."
The group watched in amazement as Valor's chassis adjusted, rotating out and reinserting distinct components until at last it resembled a makeshift flotation device.
Leera paused. This was not what she was expecting. The rest of the group joined in a stunned silence, while Leera stepped closer, carefully assessing how to best climb onto Valor who was already floating effortlessly on the water. She met Versio's look of disbelief and laughed nervously. "This… this is something else! I had no idea mother's old droid could...oh what's the word?"
"Variability," Hera supplied. The Ghost crew had started rounding on their position. Jacen, gawking from behind Hera and Merrin keeping him close by, asked unsurely: "Mommy, what is that fighter doing there?"
Leera, eager to entertain so many guests, dipped into the water and hopped about the impromptu ride.
From closer to the Corvus' parking spot, Wedge and Lando tried hailing the detail on the ground. Instead, drawn by the repeat sounds of laughter, they proceeded on foot to the estate. They stopped in their tracks, regarding the Vulture's current assignment with mixed feelings.
"Well, that's something you don't see every day," Antilles soon remarked with a grin, recovering.
Merrin smirked. "Leave it to my stepsister to find a new use for an old battle droid."
Leera waved at the newcomers, her laughter echoing across the water. "Come on in, the water's great!"
Lando shook his head before issuing a light chuckle as he watched Sabine pull out a holocam.
"I totally want to. But first, I just have to get a picture of this. No one will believe me otherwise."
"Well, now that's a sight for sore eyes!" Wedge thought to add.
"True. Who knew a Vulture droid could double as a pool float?" Lando conferred.
Before long, Chopper rolled forth, watching the scene with growing jealousy. "Bwoop bwoop!"
Sabine noticed Chopper's reaction and grinned. "What's the matter, little Chop? Feeling left out?"
Chopper beeped and buzzed more insistently, his lights flashing in annoyance as he paused a bit closer to the water, clearly trying to get some attention.
Noticing him at last, Leera waved. "Come on, Chopper. There's enough room for both of you."
Valor's sensors flickered as the droid tried addressing Chopper as well over the aqueduct's froth. "Chopper, I understand your concern. I was once used by the Separatists, so how am I to give Ms. Vess a pleasant ride? But now you see, I have evolved beyond my original programming."
Chopper dissected this assessment with obvious overtones of skepticism, not nearly convinced. He hovered closer, almost as if challenging Valor.
"Oh, great. Looks like Chopper's not too happy about sharing the spotlight," Hera inferred.
"Can't blame him," Wedge supplied. "Valor's got some impressive tricks up his sleeve."
It was Lando's turn to quip again. "Maybe Chopper just needs to show off a bit. How about it, Chop?"
Chopper beeped enthusiastically, apparently up for the challenge as he started performing a series of spins and flips. His rockets flared as he got too close to the currents. "Whoap whopppa!"
The crew laughed and cheered, enjoying the pirouetting now starting between the two droids.
Except for Leera, who held on tight, relaying: "Alright, alright, you both win. You're both amazing."
Chopper beeped triumphantly, for the moment satisfied, while Valor's sensors flickered in what seemed like amusement, as the drone assessed amicably: "Last one to shore's a molting Geonosian."
But then, something in Valor changed, as suddenly the droid took off unannounced, apparently to commit this endeavor while beating Chopper to the punch. It zipped hurriedly back down the winding aqueduct route to a point along the sides where a growing crowd of onlookers gawked.
This sudden movement caught Leera off guard, and as she lost her balance, plunging into the water, she cried out in vain: "Waythadjo-ley quetha way, Valor!"
But Valor, too focused on chasing Chopper, did not bother to notice.
Leera, now spluttering, struggled to stay afloat, the current pulling her along well enough to risk flinging her into a major arterial supply of the capital aqueducts, forcing some of the Ghost crew watching a bit nonplussed to react swiftly, Sabine shouting, "Leera's in the water!"
Hera dropped her gear, waving more people over. "We need to get her out!"
Wedge and Lando likewise sprang into action, Wedge grabbing a nearby rope while Lando tried hailing a speeder to take over the water.
Hera ran along the edge of the aqueduct, trying to keep pace with Leera. "Try holding onto something, Leera! An outcropping, anything!"
"Fear not, dear, Wedge'll get you out!" came the holler from up the duracrete slopes, as Wedge threw the rope towards Leera with practiced gusto. Still, the current made it difficult for her to grab hold.
Just as she was about to go under, a strong hand reached out and grabbed her. It was Sabine, who had jumped into the water to save her, her semi-waterproof kit spraying and spitting about. "I've got you!"
With Sabine's help, Leera managed to gain enough clearance to size up and fish out the end of the rope, working past some sheer embarrassment as she gasped for air. Wedge and Hera were exchanging looks of sheer relief, before hiking up their work collars and pulling the pair to safety. Sabine, however, not correcting for the incline, soon found transferred through her helmet the familiar scuffing and cloud-inducing give of sediment that was lining the aqueduct, threatening to dislocate her shoulder as she strained to pull Leera to the surface with her afresh. She wobbled to a standing position, working with the others to at last drag Leera to safety.
Leera, not anticipating this follow-up immersion, coughed riotously, as she spat out a sizable amount of water. But she was otherwise safe.
In moments, Leera found herself wrapped in a proffered towel, shivering despite the added benefits her protective amulet and conditioning through years at the Academy usually provided. A bit breathless, she said at last: "I owe you one, Sabine. I really thought I was done for."
Smiling, the Mandalorian dipped past the curtain of beads screening foot traffic through the converted kitchen space aboard the Ghost. She looked very concerned as she remarked over the bustle of the Syndullas. "Seriously, don't mention it. Just try not to take any more unexpected swims while Chopper's in one of his moods, okay?"
Chopper and Valor retorted Wren's logic atonally, their eagerness for the chase long forgotten.
Valor stepped near enough to murmur at Leera. "Not like I intended for all this to happen."
Leera nodded, though her face kept rather neutral as she found the strength in her lungs to respond clearly enough: "It's okay, Valor. Just… maybe no more sudden moves. I am beginning to gain a clearer picture of some of the trademark mischief the Ghost crew has under their belt."
"Oh, not only our belts, it lines our pockets even!" declared Hera, busying about and nearly stumbling over Chopper's own concerned nonsense sounds in their midst.
The crew shared a relieved laugh, the tension easing.
Sabine, feeling her own stomach rumbling past the brief guffaws, gave Hera a pointed look. "Ugh! The festival stalls open yet?"
It appeared the festival preparations for that rotation would take a little while longer yet, so Leera was shown about the Ghost's usual VIP parking spot by Chopper in the hopes of gathering up her recovered effects, courtesy of riverine security.
This was a ground-level hangar overlooking the sprawling marina launch points, the ship stood poised for its latest mission. The early morning light cast a golden hue over the Lothal River, giving her a better glimpse of how the many docks, like kernels of grain, dotted the rapid's edge. Though, currents-wise, it was a gentle tug against the docks providing a serene ambiance, a stark contrast to the bustling activity as the festival set up once more in anticipation of yet more crowds.
So renewed following the curfew hours imposed in light of activities in their sector, Lothal's capital was already teeming with the energy and anticipation that Leera, sighing perturbedly, wanted nothing of after Valor's little pranky prank.
She hopped about barefoot, trying to dry off in a spot among the hangar amenities secluded enough for changing back into fresh clothes.
There was a sound, and a familiar shape to the shadows entering the hangar. Leera poked her head out to find both Sabine and Hera, smiling warmly as they locked on to her position. Those dang smiles reminded her to start brushing up on her hygiene with all this R&R.
She turned to double-check her outfit on a thick band of reflective paneling lining the hangar at about eye level, before nodding contentedly.
Sabine reached her position first, stating pointedly, "Come on already, Leera. Wedge and Lando are due up for Republic stuff. Let's go say goodbye."
Leera nodded, a smile spreading across her face as she followed them to where Wedge and Lando were preparing to leave. The two veterans of a galaxy in turmoil turned and smiled as the trio approached.
Wedge Antilles grinned, "Well, I'll have to remember to get a souvenir next time. Take care, everyone."
Lando Calrissian opined with his charming smile, "Hera, you grow more beautiful each passing d–."
Leera stepped forward hastily, shaking Lando's and then Wedge's outstretched hands firmly. "Thank you both. It was great seeing you again."
Wedge and Lando nodded, giving up on attempts to hug General Syndulla as they stepped free, waving with some finality.
Hera chuckled at Leera's antics while the two pilots went to board the Corvus. Then, as the ramp closed and the ship lifted off, Leera turned to Sabine and Hera, her eyes scanning the skyline all nestled together. The new construction defining Lothalian capital quarters in the distance.
---
"It's amazing how much the place has changed. It looks so different from when I was stationed in the Imperial command dome," Leera wondered aloud, feeling much better in loaned street wear.
Hera, or a small holographic likeness of her emanating from Sabine's lone utility gauntlet as she busied about inside the Ghost updating the local authorities, nodded at either of them. There was a thoughtful expression on her face. "A lot sure has changed since then. The city has been rebuilt and revitalized. I'm kind of impressed, actually."
Sabine chimed in, "Yeah, I heard an Alderaanian city planner was brought in to help with the redesign. They've done an absolutely amazing job."
Leera smiled, feeling a sense of hope and renewal as she looked at the transformed city. "It's beautiful," she said softly.
Until her Dathomiri eyes spotted an old Imperial-issue TIE Bomber coursing inland from a decaying orbit, aflame. Her heart skipped a beat as she went to reclaim her footwear from the security bin.
"What is it?" Sabine asked, without her helmet to notify her of the same.
Leera said nothing for a moment, giving Chopper time to remark on the matter.
Sabine, eyes widening, nodded quickly. "Let's go, Chopper!" she demanded, slipping into her combat armor and checking her jet pack's fuel levels.
Agreeing in monotone, Chopper fired up his petite nacelles and coasted forth.
In moments, Leera and Hera, following after them in the Phantom, got a clearer glimpse of its descent corridor and hailed their fellow scouts.
"We need to intercept that bomber before it reaches the city limits! I've got a good read on it, if it keeps this up. Anyway, relaying you the anticipated coordinates!"
"Thanks, Hera!" Sabine replied, narrowly clipping a local avian flock sharing that altitude. "Whoa!"
From the adjacent co-pilot seating, Leera began murmuring a bit of an incantation. Then she stopped abruptly to say, loudly: "Oh, I'd be really careful around that thing!"
Hera looked at her quizzically but chose to put it aside and focus on helping the downed bomber pilot.
In moments, everyone was attending to the vessel, the Phantom correcting its course via tractor lock while Sabine and Chopper had a go at applying spray-on flame-retarding compounds.
It slid at last into the grassy foothills leading to the old hidden Jedi temple, the pilot taking long enough it seemed to recuperate and clamber forth, that Hera and Leera were already offboarding from the Phantom, the latter's arms crossed, aghast. "Of all days..."
"Well, really glad Antilles didn't see this," Sabine offered. "Terrible job at flying, just saying."
With a knowing look, Lt. Cmdr Faro bid adieu to her superior, but not before returning the punch.
---
The sun was beginning to set, as the crew of the Corvus finally gained clearance to land and disembark with the rebuilt Vulture-class droid.
The owner of the antique was not in, according to a door guard at Captain Elara Vess' personal estate. However, her daughter, concealing signs of recent wounds and medical treatment beneath a heavy Lothalian-patterned smock, consented to the receipt of it.
She extended the opportunity for the Corvus crew to avoid the chaos of the starports mid-festival and to instead join in some relaxation at the estate's private waterpark, one of the more dominant features in the area. That she was stuck on the ground not from injuries in the field of battle, but as the holo-emitters on her pair of droids had drained their power cells, was a whole other matter.
"Leera," she clarified, as the chain code was a bit hard to read in the sharp lighting of the main estate access. This forced the Corvus detail to amble along the gravel-strewn limits of a lazy, winding river that cut into the property. Until the Vulture-class beeped at everyone.
Vess paused, whirling about to regard the old droid with an inquisitive eye blink. "The droid feels it can get us there quicker on the water."
"Valor," the droid announced through its speakers. "That is my callsign."
"Okay then, Valor, let's see what you got."
"Oh, are we going for a swim?" Versio thought to ask, glancing at her Republic uniform.
Valor's sensors flickered in acknowledgment. "Activating flotation mode."
The group watched in amazement as Valor's chassis adjusted, rotating out and reinserting distinct components until at last it resembled a makeshift flotation device.
Leera paused. This was not what she was expecting. The rest of the group joined in a stunned silence, while Leera stepped closer, carefully assessing how to best climb onto Valor who was already floating effortlessly on the water. She met Versio's look of disbelief and laughed nervously. "This… this is something else! I had no idea mother's old droid could...oh what's the word?"
"Variability," Hera supplied. The Ghost crew had started rounding on their position. Jacen, gawking from behind Hera and Merrin keeping him close by, asked unsurely: "Mommy, what is that fighter doing there?"
Leera, eager to entertain so many guests, dipped into the water and hopped about the impromptu ride.
From closer to the Corvus' parking spot, Wedge and Lando tried hailing the detail on the ground. Instead, drawn by the repeat sounds of laughter, they proceeded on foot to the estate. They stopped in their tracks, regarding the Vulture's current assignment with mixed feelings.
"Well, that's something you don't see every day," Antilles soon remarked with a grin, recovering.
Merrin smirked. "Leave it to my stepsister to find a new use for an old battle droid."
Leera waved at the newcomers, her laughter echoing across the water. "Come on in, the water's great!"
Lando shook his head before issuing a light chuckle as he watched Sabine pull out a holocam.
"I totally want to. But first, I just have to get a picture of this. No one will believe me otherwise."
"Well, now that's a sight for sore eyes!" Wedge thought to add.
"True. Who knew a Vulture droid could double as a pool float?" Lando conferred.
Before long, Chopper rolled forth, watching the scene with growing jealousy. "Bwoop bwoop!"
Sabine noticed Chopper's reaction and grinned. "What's the matter, little Chop? Feeling left out?"
Chopper beeped and buzzed more insistently, his lights flashing in annoyance as he paused a bit closer to the water, clearly trying to get some attention.
Noticing him at last, Leera waved. "Come on, Chopper. There's enough room for both of you."
Valor's sensors flickered as the droid tried addressing Chopper as well over the aqueduct's froth. "Chopper, I understand your concern. I was once used by the Separatists, so how am I to give Ms. Vess a pleasant ride? But now you see, I have evolved beyond my original programming."
Chopper dissected this assessment with obvious overtones of skepticism, not nearly convinced. He hovered closer, almost as if challenging Valor.
"Oh, great. Looks like Chopper's not too happy about sharing the spotlight," Hera inferred.
"Can't blame him," Wedge supplied. "Valor's got some impressive tricks up his sleeve."
It was Lando's turn to quip again. "Maybe Chopper just needs to show off a bit. How about it, Chop?"
Chopper beeped enthusiastically, apparently up for the challenge as he started performing a series of spins and flips. His rockets flared as he got too close to the currents. "Whoap whopppa!"
The crew laughed and cheered, enjoying the pirouetting now starting between the two droids.
Except for Leera, who held on tight, relaying: "Alright, alright, you both win. You're both amazing."
Chopper beeped triumphantly, for the moment satisfied, while Valor's sensors flickered in what seemed like amusement, as the drone assessed amicably: "Last one to shore's a molting Geonosian."
But then, something in Valor changed, as suddenly the droid took off unannounced, apparently to commit this endeavor while beating Chopper to the punch. It zipped hurriedly back down the winding aqueduct route to a point along the sides where a growing crowd of onlookers gawked.
This sudden movement caught Leera off guard, and as she lost her balance, plunging into the water, she cried out in vain: "Waythadjo-ley quetha way, Valor!"
But Valor, too focused on chasing Chopper, did not bother to notice.
Leera, now spluttering, struggled to stay afloat, the current pulling her along well enough to risk flinging her into a major arterial supply of the capital aqueducts, forcing some of the Ghost crew watching a bit nonplussed to react swiftly, Sabine shouting, "Leera's in the water!"
Hera dropped her gear, waving more people over. "We need to get her out!"
Wedge and Lando likewise sprang into action, Wedge grabbing a nearby rope while Lando tried hailing a speeder to take over the water.
Hera ran along the edge of the aqueduct, trying to keep pace with Leera. "Try holding onto something, Leera! An outcropping, anything!"
"Fear not, dear, Wedge'll get you out!" came the holler from up the duracrete slopes, as Wedge threw the rope towards Leera with practiced gusto. Still, the current made it difficult for her to grab hold.
Just as she was about to go under, a strong hand reached out and grabbed her. It was Sabine, who had jumped into the water to save her, her semi-waterproof kit spraying and spitting about. "I've got you!"
With Sabine's help, Leera managed to gain enough clearance to size up and fish out the end of the rope, working past some sheer embarrassment as she gasped for air. Wedge and Hera were exchanging looks of sheer relief, before hiking up their work collars and pulling the pair to safety. Sabine, however, not correcting for the incline, soon found transferred through her helmet the familiar scuffing and cloud-inducing give of sediment that was lining the aqueduct, threatening to dislocate her shoulder as she strained to pull Leera to the surface with her afresh. She wobbled to a standing position, working with the others to at last drag Leera to safety.
Leera, not anticipating this follow-up immersion, coughed riotously, as she spat out a sizable amount of water. But she was otherwise safe.
In moments, Leera found herself wrapped in a proffered towel, shivering despite the added benefits her protective amulet and conditioning through years at the Academy usually provided. A bit breathless, she said at last: "I owe you one, Sabine. I really thought I was done for."
Smiling, the Mandalorian dipped past the curtain of beads screening foot traffic through the converted kitchen space aboard the Ghost. She looked very concerned as she remarked over the bustle of the Syndullas. "Seriously, don't mention it. Just try not to take any more unexpected swims while Chopper's in one of his moods, okay?"
Chopper and Valor retorted Wren's logic atonally, their eagerness for the chase long forgotten.
Valor stepped near enough to murmur at Leera. "Not like I intended for all this to happen."
Leera nodded, though her face kept rather neutral as she found the strength in her lungs to respond clearly enough: "It's okay, Valor. Just… maybe no more sudden moves. I am beginning to gain a clearer picture of some of the trademark mischief the Ghost crew has under their belt."
"Oh, not only our belts, it lines our pockets even!" declared Hera, busying about and nearly stumbling over Chopper's own concerned nonsense sounds in their midst.
The crew shared a relieved laugh, the tension easing.
Sabine, feeling her own stomach rumbling past the brief guffaws, gave Hera a pointed look. "Ugh! The festival stalls open yet?"
It appeared the festival preparations for that rotation would take a little while longer yet, so Leera was shown about the Ghost's usual VIP parking spot by Chopper in the hopes of gathering up her recovered effects, courtesy of riverine security.
This was a ground-level hangar overlooking the sprawling marina launch points, the ship stood poised for its latest mission. The early morning light cast a golden hue over the Lothal River, giving her a better glimpse of how the many docks, like kernels of grain, dotted the rapid's edge. Though, currents-wise, it was a gentle tug against the docks providing a serene ambiance, a stark contrast to the bustling activity as the festival set up once more in anticipation of yet more crowds.
So renewed following the curfew hours imposed in light of activities in their sector, Lothal's capital was already teeming with the energy and anticipation that Leera, sighing perturbedly, wanted nothing of after Valor's little pranky prank.
She hopped about barefoot, trying to dry off in a spot among the hangar amenities secluded enough for changing back into fresh clothes.
There was a sound, and a familiar shape to the shadows entering the hangar. Leera poked her head out to find both Sabine and Hera, smiling warmly as they locked on to her position. Those dang smiles reminded her to start brushing up on her hygiene with all this R&R.
She turned to double-check her outfit on a thick band of reflective paneling lining the hangar at about eye level, before nodding contentedly.
Sabine reached her position first, stating pointedly, "Come on already, Leera. Wedge and Lando are due up for Republic stuff. Let's go say goodbye."
Leera nodded, a smile spreading across her face as she followed them to where Wedge and Lando were preparing to leave. The two veterans of a galaxy in turmoil turned and smiled as the trio approached.
Wedge Antilles grinned, "Well, I'll have to remember to get a souvenir next time. Take care, everyone."
Lando Calrissian opined with his charming smile, "Hera, you grow more beautiful each passing d–."
Leera stepped forward hastily, shaking Lando's and then Wedge's outstretched hands firmly. "Thank you both. It was great seeing you again."
Wedge and Lando nodded, giving up on attempts to hug General Syndulla as they stepped free, waving with some finality.
Hera chuckled at Leera's antics while the two pilots went to board the Corvus. Then, as the ramp closed and the ship lifted off, Leera turned to Sabine and Hera, her eyes scanning the skyline all nestled together. The new construction defining Lothalian capital quarters in the distance.
---
"It's amazing how much the place has changed. It looks so different from when I was stationed in the Imperial command dome," Leera wondered aloud, feeling much better in loaned street wear.
Hera, or a small holographic likeness of her emanating from Sabine's lone utility gauntlet as she busied about inside the Ghost updating the local authorities, nodded at either of them. There was a thoughtful expression on her face. "A lot sure has changed since then. The city has been rebuilt and revitalized. I'm kind of impressed, actually."
Sabine chimed in, "Yeah, I heard an Alderaanian city planner was brought in to help with the redesign. They've done an absolutely amazing job."
Leera smiled, feeling a sense of hope and renewal as she looked at the transformed city. "It's beautiful," she said softly.
Until her Dathomiri eyes spotted an old Imperial-issue TIE Bomber coursing inland from a decaying orbit, aflame. Her heart skipped a beat as she went to reclaim her footwear from the security bin.
"What is it?" Sabine asked, without her helmet to notify her of the same.
Leera said nothing for a moment, giving Chopper time to remark on the matter.
Sabine, eyes widening, nodded quickly. "Let's go, Chopper!" she demanded, slipping into her combat armor and checking her jet pack's fuel levels.
Agreeing in monotone, Chopper fired up his petite nacelles and coasted forth.
In moments, Leera and Hera, following after them in the Phantom, got a clearer glimpse of its descent corridor and hailed their fellow scouts.
"We need to intercept that bomber before it reaches the city limits! I've got a good read on it, if it keeps this up. Anyway, relaying you the anticipated coordinates!"
"Thanks, Hera!" Sabine replied, narrowly clipping a local avian flock sharing that altitude. "Whoa!"
From the adjacent co-pilot seating, Leera began murmuring a bit of an incantation. Then she stopped abruptly to say, loudly: "Oh, I'd be really careful around that thing!"
Hera looked at her quizzically but chose to put it aside and focus on helping the downed bomber pilot.
In moments, everyone was attending to the vessel, the Phantom correcting its course via tractor lock while Sabine and Chopper had a go at applying spray-on flame-retarding compounds.
It slid at last into the grassy foothills leading to the old hidden Jedi temple, the pilot taking long enough it seemed to recuperate and clamber forth, that Hera and Leera were already offboarding from the Phantom, the latter's arms crossed, aghast. "Of all days..."
"Well, really glad Antilles didn't see this," Sabine offered. "Terrible job at flying, just saying."
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